President Bradley?

Bill Bradley, the Democratic senior senator from New Jersey, has been drawing quiet but constant notice here of late. At a time when both parties are circling overhead to see how best to fill the power void, and as more Democrats come to accept the fact that Jimmy Carter liberalism won’t cut it forever, Bradley is increasingly the darling of his party. Although he has announced that he will not run for President in 1988, there’s a growing number of powerful Democrats hoping—and establishment Republicans fearing—that he could change his mind.

Why the enthusiasm over this former basketball player (N.Y. Knicks, 1967- 1977) and Rhodes scholar? Bradley’s main appeal is that he seems to be the perfect Democrat to take control of an America that is still coasting on the residual propulsion of a Reagan Revolution whose engines have been shut down. “Bradley is the best nominee for the Democrats,” flatly asserts New Republic columnist Fred Barnes, who published a study urging Bradley to run for the White House. “He’s appealing, a strong vote-getter, and, most importantly, not a knee-jerk liberal.” The senator, indeed, stands at the front of a growing group of Democrats who are leaving behind the 1984 San Francisco convention, that symbol of a liberal, out-of-touch, specialinterest Democratic Party.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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Bill Bradley, the Democratic senior senator from New Jersey, has been drawing quiet but constant notice here of late. At a time when both parties are circling overhead to see how best to fill the power void, and as more Democrats come to accept the fact that Jimmy Carter liberalism won’t cut it forever, Bradley is increasingly the darling of his party. Although he has announced that he will not run for President in 1988, there’s a growing number of powerful Democrats hoping—and establishment Republicans fearing—that he could change his mind.

Why the enthusiasm over this former basketball player (N.Y. Knicks, 1967- 1977) and Rhodes scholar? Bradley’s main appeal is that he seems to be the perfect Democrat to take control of an America that is still coasting on the residual propulsion of a Reagan Revolution whose engines have been shut down. “Bradley is the best nominee for the Democrats,” flatly asserts New Republic columnist Fred Barnes, who published a study urging Bradley to run for the White House. “He’s appealing, a strong vote-getter, and, most importantly, not a knee-jerk liberal.” The senator, indeed, stands at the front of a growing group of Democrats who are leaving behind the 1984 San Francisco convention, that symbol of a liberal, out-of-touch, specialinterest Democratic Party.