What's Ahead In The U.S. Political Arena
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, WORLD NEWS: The United States presidential campaign has two fewer candidates. After suffering major defeats in primary elections earlier this week, Democrat Bill Bradley dropped out of the race. Republican John McCain suspended his campaign after - or campaign against, rather, frontrunner George W. Bush. Bradley says that he will now support Vice President Al Gore. McCain says he might support Bush if the Texas governor adopts some of his ideas for the Republican platform. So, does all of this mean that campaigning is done until both parties hold their nominating conventions later this year? Not at all. CNN's Bruce Morton looks ahead.</s>BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): People keep saying the political parties are weak, but they're still strong enough to nominate their man. This year, the party establishment, the regulars, got the nominees they wanted. The insurgents lost. What now? Well, George W. Bush and the Reverend Pat Robertson went steady during the primaries, especially in South Carolina. The question now is - can Bush get his class ring back and start wooing the moderates? Will it be a negative campaign? Bet on it. It's more of a sure thing than Microsoft. Gore go negative? Just ask Bill Bradley.</s>BILL BRADLEY, FMR. DEMOCRATIC PRES. CANDIDATE: I thought that there were distortions and negativity.</s>MORTON: Will George Bush go negative? How about those ads saying John McCain opposed research on breast cancer? (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, BUSH RADIO AD) ANNOUNCER: McCain opposes funding for vital breast cancer programs right here in New York.</s>MORTON: There's that video of Gore's famous visit to the Buddhist fund-raiser. We will see this video roughly 1,438,007 times, assuming we don't watch the news every day. Then there's this famous video.</s>AL GORE, DEMOCRATIC PRES. CANDIDATE: My counsel tells me there is no controlling legal authority that says there was any violation of any law.</s>MORTON: We won't see that quite as often -- it's not as colorful - - but often. And both campaigns will spend all the money -- hard, soft, squishy, whatever -- they can raise. A couple of Bush's Texas friends ponied up a couple of million dollars for ads attacking McCain's environmental record -- independent expenditure, of course. We'll see a lot of that. What else? Gore, who is thought to be a good debater, has suggested twice weekly debates along with a promise not to use TV ads -- same offer he made to Bradley. Gore thinks, probably correctly, that he's more knowledgeable on the issues than Bush, and he'll try to paint Bush as extreme -- Pat Robertson again. Bush will talk about his record of inclusion, his ability to work with Democrats, which he has done in Texas. He'll paint Gore as a hopeless partisan, Dr. Gridlock. Gore will talk health care; Bush will talk tax cut. And just think - after only eight months of this, we'll vote. I'll bet you can hardly wait. Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.