SARAH ENGLAND/YH

Bradley: substance over style

The 2000 presidential election is as much about Clinton as about anything else. After an administration plagued by scandal and hypocrisy, the nation does not need populism, waffling, or nostalgic morality. It needs rational, confident, and stable leadership. Of the four front-runners, Bill Bradley is best qualified to provide such direction.

Throughout his campaign, Bradley has proven himself simultaneously considerate and forceful in his opinions. What he lacks in rhetorical flash he makes up for in simply articulated, honest, and well thought-out plans. While Al Gore, George W. Bush, Jr., DC '68, and John McCain have pumped out the usual polished, meaningless one-liners, Bradley has insisted on substance. The one-minute ads he ran before the New Hampshire primary ought to be a model for popular politics. In them, he responded to voter questions simply and concisely, without catch phrases or attacks. Speaking in person, he demonstrated the same concern for providing his constituents with as much information as possible. In contrast to his rivals, one can watch Bradley and understand his goals.

Bradley's platform is a model of reasoned liberalism. For starters, he has committed himself to a foreign policy based upon diplomacy, not armed coercion. This approach stands in stark contrast to the neo-imperialism pursued by Clinton, whose belief in the United States' right to foist its will upon the world has manifested itself in several incidents of senseless violence. The president ordered cruise missile attacks on a Sudanese aspirin factory and repeatedly bombed Iraq, a nation he allows to starve under crippling and unproductive international sanctions. In direct violation of the War Powers Act, he defied the United Nations and led NATO on a 70-day bombing campaign against Serbia and Kosovo, where Serbs, unhindered by the bombing, continued a brutal genocide that produced the largest European refugee crisis in 40 years. Gore supported Clinton's actions, and neither Bush nor McCain will abandon America's big stick approach to foreign relations. Only Bradley promises to rein in a country now viewed as an international bully.

Bradley's virtues become even more apparent when compared to the platforms of his rivals. Al Gore makes no significant breaks from Clinton's wishy-washy cen-trism. As for his much-touted environmental record, while Gore served in the Senate he was actually less willing than Bradley to protect virgin forests from logging. Bush seems little more than a Republican version of Clinton. He cloaks feel-good statements in smooth talk and blather about the dignity of the presidency. Proving that Clinton has no monopoly on hypocrisy, the self-proclaimed "compassionate conservative" governs a state that leads the nation in executions. McCain concentrates so much on his character that it's difficult to actually discern an agenda behind all his flag-waving. Beneath the bluster, there isn't much more than the usual intellectual bankruptcy of modern conservatism: decentralized authority, irrational tax cuts, and values, values, values.

To be sure, Bradley isn't perfect. He supports the death penalty, the most egregious human rights abuse in modern America. However, his advocacy of capital punishment is the only major flaw in an otherwise admirable platform. In a field committed to pandering populism, he provides an oasis of meaningful politics. A vote for Bradley is a vote for a break from the Clinton paradigm, a vote for an America governed by a commitment to create a better society. The nation needs rational, compassionate liberal leadership, and Bradley is the only candidate who can provide it. Nathan Littlefield is a freshman in Ezra Stiles.

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