Boombox Politics Tuned Out Bradley

The New York Knicks called him “Dollar Bill” because he was close with a buck and had the steady cool of a banker’s son.

Bill Bradley was a thinking man’s basketball player. At Princeton and with the Knicks, he was no leaper or gaudy shooter, but he always was moving, playing defense, hitting the open man.

“The depth of Bradley’s game,” wrote John McPhee in his 1965 book, “A Sense of Where You Are,” “is most discernible when he doesn’t have the ball.”

But as a U.S. senator, “Dollar Bill” Bradley found that the game didn’t always reward a thinking man’s politician.

An idealist and cerebral loner, the New Jersey Democrat droned speeches on tax reform and Third World debt. With tie askew and munching an apple, Bradley wandered Senate halls as a bemused professor or a Platonic philosopher-king.

But politics turned into a boombox - partisan rap and rock aimed at 10-second sound bites on the night’s TV news.

I suspect Bradley is backing off from another run for the Senate because he’s tired of being tuned out by the Politics of Noise.

“I’ve had enough, and it’s time to go,” Bradley told about 50 fans and friends Wednesday.

Lately, he has seemed lost in a Washington mean with party squabbling and ugly debate tinged by race and class warfare. In a city seething with Republican presidential feuds and House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s egoistic bombast, Bradley became a misplaced soul.

He was a classical flute player drowned out by Newt’s Dixieland blast.

“I’m disgusted with the politics of both parties,” Bradley said in his farewell. “Republicans think the market solves everything; Democrats think government is the answer. Neither’s correct.”

Cynics scoff that Bradley, who barely survived his last election, is backpedaling from a tough, maybe humiliating race next year in tax-angry, cantankerous New Jersey.

True, presumed opponent Dick Zimmer is a publicity-hungry, cash-flush Republican from central New Jersey: The Kid vs. the Legend.Sen. Alphonse D’Amato, R-N.Y., had threatened to bury Bradley under Republican money. GOP image-meisters already were plotting TV ads: “He voted against a balanced budget, welfare reform and the ‘Contract With America.’ Who needs Bill Bradley?”

But I doubt “Dollar Bill,” who spent his life in the arena’s heat, was scared off by a challenge.

More credibly, Bradley was soured by his diminished role in a Senate ruled by the right-wing sloganeering of Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and Jesse Helms, R-N.C. At 52, Bradley’s not the first middle-aged man to itch for a different life.

What’s next?

“Bill only wanted two jobs, president of the World Bank or president of the United States. Neither was offered,” said a friend wryly.

Bradley’s thoughtful style never was fitted for the slam-bang TV drama of national politics. Now, though, “Dollar Bill” is musing about running as an independent in ‘96.

Sounds like a quixotic dream to quench Bradley’s idealism.

Sure, he’s a maverick deficit-cutter in tune with Ross Perot, Paul Tsongas and Warren Rudman. But Bradley the third-party candidate would be as welcome as another tabloid scandal to Bill Clinton.

You could hear Clinton, who often has been criticized by Bradley, issuing farewell praises through gritted teeth: “I will miss his leadership.”

After all, Bradley’s departure is more bad news for the Democrats. With Bradley, Illinois’ Paul Simon, Arkansas’ David Pryor, Nebraska’s James Exon, Alabama’s Howell Heflin, Louisiana’s Bennett Johnston - and maybe Georgia’s Sam Nunn - leaving the Senate, a re-elected Clinton could face a GOP juggernaut smashing his vetoes or the Democrats’ filibusters.

Like Bradley, those vanishing Democrats have tired of the losing treadmill.

I suspect Bradley tried to inject fresh joy into his political life after the 1990 near-death election. Shocked after narrowly avoiding defeat by Christine Todd Whitman, whom he had outspent 12-to-1, a sobered Bradley said, “I’ve been liberated.”

He had ducked public anger in that campaign over Gov. Jim Florio’s tax increases. Never again, he swore, would he squelch his true voice.

“You don’t make a move on the court for the fans. You concentrate on the game,” he said. “You don’t make speeches for a group or trend.”

So Bradley unleashed his instincts. He cut loose with heartfelt speeches about race in America, violence, phony government finances. For two hours on the Senate floor, he lashed Clinton’s policies.

But nobody cared. He was patronized as “Bill the philosopher.” TV sounds bites went instead to Senate tantrums or Gingrich blather.

“On a basic level, politics is broken,” Bradley said when he quit. “People have lost faith …”

“Dollar Bill” walks away from a game that has been degraded by spite, incivility, big money and posturing. Maybe he was weary of moving without the ball.

But now, without him, the Politics of Noise will get only meaner.

Perhaps what Bradley needs is an interlude, echoing Woodrow Wilson, as a college president.

Are you listening, Princeton?

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