Bradley's public tone is condescending, sarcastic and above-it-all. He tried to ignore Gore's jabs for a long time but now he has hit back with a vengeance. |
I don't know if people are out there searching in their souls for the Jenny Craig candidate. |
If he sees himself with a lot of support among religious conservatives, there are people out there already with national records working hard at that. You have Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Sam Brownback in Kansas, George Allen in Virginia, all from that segment of the party. |
If Iowa has this image that we have a squeaky-clean government, this is a few drops of mud. But have we been buried under an avalanche of mud? No. Not yet, anyway. |
Iowans tend to like mavericks. Grassley is pretty much a down-the-line Republican, but with a maverick streak. |
That's the question. Is there corruption involved? Some improper exchange of favors or anything like that? We don't know that yet. Or is it at best evidence of incompetence -- somebody was simply asleep at the switch? |
The outside baseball is a public perception of disarray. This isn't a bunch of Democratic Howard Deans out there saying this (about Rumsfeld). This is a bunch of respected people in the military. ... And certainly the evidence that people see is of a lack of success in Iraq. |
There's a certain quality in both of their personalities that has led to this. Gore seems irritated and angry he is having to work so hard for the party nomination after serving loyally as vice president. |
There's not a lot of daylight between them. |
What this does, at the very least, is raise the question of competence. Did someone fall asleep at the switch? |
You have to remember a lot of this is still inside baseball. There aren't a huge number of people paying attention yet, but that number is growing. |