Bradley said he was responding to concerns raised by parents of children in New Jersey's poor urban schools but does not think vouchers are the solution to public education's problems. The real solution, he said, is to help teachers do their jobs better. Bush has been labeled the compassionate conservative, Gore the new Democrat. Bradley rarely talked about his basketball career during his Senate days as he worked on tax reform and other complex issues. Instead he almost willfully stayed out of the spotlight for a couple of years and built a reputation as a hard-working, serious guy.
Basketball comes up often now.
Bradley refers to his experiences on the Knicks when he talks about how he has traveled the country. In Manchester, a man asks Bradley to sign a beat-up basketball he bought for a quarter at a yard sale. In Portsmouth, a lawyer recalls reading John McPhee's profile of Bradley as a young basketball fan. But Bradley also can put audiences to sleep as easily as Gore with his detailed lectures about campaign finance reform. Short answers are for questions he considers intellectually suspect.