Potomac Watch

Bill Bradley said the harshest things about President Clinton this week, and without even mentioning his name. He didn't have to. All the Democratic presidential candidate had to do was talk about himself.

"Every day" in his youth, the former senator told an audience in his Missouri hometown, his mother the teacher "began a class with a lesson about some character trait -- honesty, integrity, courage, trust."

His father, a Republican businessman, taught him the virtue of hard work and that, "Character is where you find it."

Still think voters don't care about presidential character? Henry Hyde couldn't have made a bigger hash of the Clinton legacy than this liberal Democrat did with a single speech.

The Bradley speech should prove, at least to anyone outside the Carville Chorus, that in the 2000 campaign personal history is political destiny. Bill Clinton came to the White House as the ultimate policy wonk. But the corrupt soul of his presidency has ironically elevated character above ideas, the personal above policy. Conservatives have long believed that "ideas have consequences," but so far the only idea of consequence is biography.

Among Republicans, the candidates leading in national polls are running mainly on who they are, not what they want to do. Elizabeth Dole is the candidate without a Y chromosome, John McCain the war hero and political maverick.

Front-runner George W. Bush began his campaign in Kennebunkport next to his parents, who voters recall as a first couple with integrity. So far that family history and George W.'s personal charisma are trumping the fact that voters know little else about him.

The idea candidates, meanwhile, have lagged in large part because their biographies are less appealing. Dan Quayle carries the burden of media vilification, while Steve Forbes inherited his money and has never held political office. That's why the Forbes camp is running gauzy TV spots showing his five daughters discussing dad's character.

In less placid times, this all might count for less. It did in 1992. But seven years of Clinton have made voters yearn for an antidote, much as voters favored Jimmy Carter ("Why not the best?") after Richard Nixon.

The media call this "Clinton fatigue," as if there were no moral or ethical judgment involved. But in searching for the un-Clinton, voters are implicitly rejecting the political mores of Clintonism. And all the polls show Vice President Gore suffering guilt by association -- the price of his too slavish loyalty.

Mr. Bradley is certainly counting on this. His kickoff speech this week was a character and ethics assault on several levels. There was the unsubtle personal-life contrast: "the magic of a good marriage or the satisfaction of a life led true to one's own values."

And the predictable appeal to political reform: "I'm running for president to restore trust in public service and confidence in our collective will." No Buddhist Temples for him.

Most intriguing, Mr. Bradley is casting even his liberal ideas as a matter of character. "I'm more interested in leadership than polls and politics, and I believe we need a new kind of leadership," he said, to some of his loudest applause. "A leadership that puts the people front and center, not the president." Louder applause.

Government, he added, shouldn't "be doing trifling things much of the time for some of the people. But it should be doing some large, essential things all of the time for the whole nation." No Dick Morris agenda for him. This is manna to cause-parched liberals who've watched a two-term Democratic president achieve such Gingrichian goals as Nafta, welfare reform and debt retirement.

There's some risk in this strategy, especially its lurch to the left. Part of Mr. Bradley's appeal has been his ideological independence. But to win over liberal interest groups, he has now begun to sound embarrassingly orthodox.

As a senator he voted twice to fund experimental school-voucher programs. But last week in Cleveland, amid a huge school controversy, the Princetonian declared that, "I don't think school vouchers are the answer to the problems of public education." He's also an Iowa convert to the blessings of ethanol. The Gore campaign will remind voters that consistency is a character issue too.

But overall the ethics theme is a big Bradley asset. It tells Democrats they can regain their moral self-respect without rewarding GOP impeachers. And it says they can nominate a candidate who'll be stronger against Republicans in 2000 because he lacks the Clinton baggage.

The Gore campaign consoles itself that this will pass because every recent two-term president has had a last-year surge in popularity. But neither Ike nor Ronald Reagan had a spouse running for Senate to remind voters of everything they didn't like in the past eight years. A sweetheart home loan, clemency for Puerto Rican terrorists: Mr. Bradley should pay Hillary Rodham Clinton's New York filing fee.

Republicans, on the other hand, may want to hold their cheers. As one GOP strategist put it, the Bradley campaign is great news, unless he wins.