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Gore and Bradley to meet with New Hampshire voters

October 27, 1999
Web posted at: 2:48 p.m. EDT (1848 GMT)

HANOVER, New Hampshire -- With less than five months before the de facto end of the presidential primary season, the two Democrats vying for their party's nomination will meet face-to-face Wednesday night at a town meeting on Dartmouth College campus.

Although Vice President Al Gore and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley will not formally debate, the event will mark the first time the two candidates have shared a stage for public questioning.

The hour-long meeting, which will air from 8 to 9 p.m. EDT, is sponsored by CNN and New Hampshire's WMUR.

Bradley's supporters were out early Wednesday morning along Hanover's scenic streets, waving signs and cheering for their candidate. When Bradley appeared in Hanover's business district later in the morning, the press far out numbered the residents as reporters from all over the world tried to ask Bradley if he was ready for the meeting.

"I'm feeling great, looking forward to tonight," Bradley said.

The vice president was keeping a low-profile Wednesday, preparing for the event.

While much of the attention in Election 2000 has focused on the shrinking field of GOP contenders, the Democratic race has begun to heat up recently as Gore changed his campaign strategy last month to directly take on his only challenger.

CNN's senior political analyst Bill Schneider says Gore needs to use the meeting "to establish the view that he can lead, that he's his own man, that he has his own agenda" as well as "raise some doubts about Bill Bradley."

Bradley's challenge is going to be introducing himself to the public, Schneider said.

"It's surprising the degree to which voters see these both of guys as blank slates even though Al Gore's been around a long time and has been vice president of the United States for about eight years," he said.

The forum is set up as a town meeting in which the candidates will field questions from the audience and not directly address each other, something Gore has called disappointing.

After the latest Federal Election Commission reports showed Bradley raising slightly more money than Gore, the vice president declared himself the underdog and began to take on Bradley, abandoning his previous strategy of ignoring Bradley and focusing on the GOP front-runner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

The tactical change has appeared to have had some effects. Gore has slightly increased his lead over Bradley in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll release Monday.

Two weeks ago, Gore was the choice of a bare majority of Democrats nationwide but Monday's poll showed his support has risen to 57 percent, while Bradley's support has dropped seven points.

Gore has gained ground, in part, among men, younger voters, and higher-income Democrats. Gore has also gained ground not by driving his opponents' negatives up but by increasing his own favorable rating nationwide.

The remaining Republican contenders minus Bush will gather for a second town meeting Thursday night at 8 p.m. EDT.

CNN's Keating Holland, Candy Crowley, Bill Delaney and Bruce Morton contributed to this report written by Janine Yagielski.


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Wednesday, October 27, 1999






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