Senator Bradley Warms Up

Scholar. Sports hero. Senator. Soon Bill Bradley will be unemployed--butnoot unchallenged. He's leaving public office, but not public life, to tackle America's thorniest issues--and he's speaking from the heart.

PT: At the beginning of your book Time Present, Time Past, you talk about how we've lost our values. There are daily reminders that our standards have slipped or they never were. You attribute it to people's self-indulgence and what they expect from government, implying that they don't really do very much in return. How do you see us combating this loss of values?

BB: The best way is to focus on things outside yourself, make the community and the world a better place through your actions. Through that direct contact with another human being to whom you've given something, you will transcend what otherwise might be a self-oriented existence.

Another way is to see that the pursuit of material goods in and of themselves is essential but often exaggerated to the exclusion of other deeper values, not the least of which are spiritual values.

PT: How do you talk about these things without sounding preachy?

BB: It's very difficult because we've gotten to a place where even raising the issue of unselfishness or materialism is thought to be out of style. Yet people are crying out for a deeper dialogue about meaning in their lives.

The way you start that dialogue is by telling stones--stories of people and situations where selflessness entered the picture. By telling stories of how people are living for something bigger than themselves, you begin to build an alternative set of meanings and counter what often comes across on television.

PT: Who's responsible for telling those stories-the media? Political leaders?

BB: It starts in the family. Mothers and fathers telling stories that begin to give meaning to their children's lives. Other institutions, especially the media, can offer stories acknowledging values that span generations and centuries.

PT: Ideally, politics provides a good forum for influencing values. But the media analyzes politicians' political motivations. You give as an example your 1992 convention speech. You say nobody reported on content, only the political reasons for the speech. Is that frustrating?

BB: It diverts from what is important. The media tends to report horse races, gossip, the event of the moment, which is one of the things that blocks our ability to confront where we are as a country, and in some cases, as individuals.

In their desire to be objective they have difficulty being positive. As a result, everything gets trashed and very little gets championed. People then feel that our circumstance is worse than it is.

PT: There is a lot of good news around. The Cold War is over, inflation is low, crime is supposedly down. Yet people are in this kind of funk. Why is that?

BB: Because of the rising economic insecurity in people's lives. When people's prospects of taking care of their families are endangered because of the economic transformation we're in the midst of-the downsizing of corporations, the introduction of information technology to the production process in the 1980s and to the service sector in the 1990s--they feel insecure.

People also have greater fears for their physical person. The rise of violence on all levels--whether it's domestic violence in the home, which often goes un-reported, or murders on the street--makes people very insecure.

Add to that the fact that politicians really don't speak to this. The political language doesn't reach people where they live. They don't believe that a politician is thinking about them or speaking to them, or that what a politician does will actually improve their economic circumstance. So they turn off politics.

PT: How does a politician rectify this? Or is there no hope?

BB: One of the geniuses of the American system is its capacity to rejuvenate. Each generation redefines who we are as Americans. That's a tremendous opportunity. First, you have to have politicians who talk in a language that reaches people and who take the risk of being the truth teller. Second, you need campaign finance reform so that money can't shape the political process as much as it does. Then you need to make it easier for people to register and vote.

PT: But then someone like you announces he's leaving office and there's one truth teller down the drain.

BB: I don't think so. The mistake is to assume that to be in public life today you have to be in elected office. I'm leaving the Senate. I'm not leaving public life. Only from the outside can you step back to project a larger vision of where the country should go and then use your efforts to further that vision.

PT: A number of larger reforms that have been attempted recently--health care, campaign finance reform--have failed dramatically. What needs to be done to get a big reform passed?

BB: Fundamental campaign finance reform cannot take place in Congress as it is now, Many politicians say, "Oh, we've done campaign finance reform." But they haven't removed the pervasive influence of money from the political process. That can only happen from the outside.

A good example of the kind of big reform that can happen in the political process, if you run it in a certain way, is tax reform. People said that would never happen, but it did. Everybody said the California Water Bill [which overhauled distribution of water in the West] would never happen. It did.

Health care was a big reform. The problem is, you cannot do big reform in one year. You need to first get out the boldest possible proposal, take all the hits, have time to absorb them, recalibrate, redefine, then come out with a new and improved version that takes into account what people said, without losing the boldness. Then you have it out there for another year to debate the new version. When that occurs, you begin to get movement because you've gotten people on board by listening to them first.

My rough role of thumb is that to do big reform you need four years. Instead of trying to do it your first year in office, make it the crowning achievement of the fourth year. Drama will have been built and the need in the country will be palpable.

PT: Did writing the book influence your decision not to run for reelection?

BB: Yes. When I started writing the book, I had no idea 1 wasn't going to run for reelection. In the course of writing, I realized it was time for me to move on.

Reflecting on what you've done has a way of completing the experience. For me, irk never enough just to do it. I have to reflect on how I've done it, why, and what I've learned. Then when I put down those reflections on paper, that closes the experience for me.

PT:You've been one of the few white politicians to discuss racism. You said being in a multiracial environment with the Knicks made you realize there are things about being black in America you will never understand. What did you mean?

BB: There are looks, attitudes, reactions, comments, possibilities missed, possibilities denied, that you can't really understand unless you live it every day. And if you're not black, you don't live it every day African Americans often refer to those [whites] who profess strong sup-port of them as "tourists," meaning they travel with us in our neighborhood, but they can leave and we can't.

PT: What are the implications for dealing with our racial problems?

BB: The only way people can begin to understand is to have a candid dialogue with someone who does. Have the courage to engage--say some unpleasant things, have pain--and transcend the pain to a deeper level of understanding.

There are four or five things I care desperately about. I'm going to be in the middle of the action on the rising economic insecurity, the need for political reform, having a candid dialogue on race in America, and reinvigorating the institutions of civil society

PT: When you arrived in the Senate in 1979 you were novel not just because of your celebrity but because you weren't a lawyer. The current Congress is more diverse. Is this a healthy trend?

BB: A legislature that's 80 percent lawyers is boring. If you have a few others in the mix, you force legislators to brush up against circumstances they wouldn't have in other times. The addition of women to the Senate has already affected the way the institution functions.

PT: How so?

BB: When a woman talks about the right to choose, it personalizes it. It has a lot more resonance. The same is true for some economic issues that disproportionately affect women.

PT: So it's about the issues rather than how the organization works?

BB: Yes. It's also about the need to be more open, more direct. We've had discussions about things we would not have had had they not been there.

PT: Such as?

BB: You're in a debate on the budget, and when it comes to issues affecting the elderly poor, somebody doesn't get why women are more intensely involved. Women have a bigger stake.

PT: You narrowly won the 1990 election, yet you say you counted it as a loss. As an athlete, you were used to winning and losing. Why did you take it so hard?

BB: I knew, having been a basketball player, that if you win a world championship by one point, you're still the word champion. That's the external reality. But then there are the internal standards, which are always the more stringent. According to the ones I'd set, I hadn't measured up. That caused me to ask myself, "What does that mean and why?" One answer might be chance, odd circumstance--not me. But I rejected that as too easy, even though there are elements of truth to it.

So I said, "What can I learn from this?" I decided I needed to speak from my heart more. I made a conscious effort not to hold back, to be more direct both in the way I dealt with other people and the way I commented on issues. To lead from the heart as well as the mind.

PT: Did playing professional basketball give you some kind of foundation?

BB: There are a lot of similarities between basketball and politics: You meet the press every day; you constantly have to perform; you know you're only as good as your last game, your last election. I was in the Senate about three months and hadn't really found my frame of reference yet. One morning around 3 A.M. I was in the Democratic cloakroom, and I looked around and one senator was pacing, one was reading, one was talking quietly, another was telling a joke. I thought to myself, "This isn't a lot different from the Knicks locker room." It's about getting people with different backgrounds to come together for a common end even though they have different personal agendas. Team play and legislating are very similar.

There are obvious differences. As a senator, I no longer had to crawl from my bed into a tub of hot water to soak every morning in order to walk. But the pressure is much more constant. It's the pressure of making decisions that affect the lives of millions of people. That's the real pressure and obligation.

People ask me, "What's your biggest thrill, being in the Senate or winning the NBA championship?" It's not even close. When you're the NBA champion, you stand at center court with your fist raised, chills going up and down your spine, and you realize you're the best in the world. Your face aches for a day' because you've smiled so much. That's the thrill. Winning a Senate seat is a much bigger honor, but it simply gives you the opportunity to work 14 hours a day to prove yourself to your constituents.

PT: One is an intellectual pursuit and the other more physical.

BB: That underestimates the extent to which basketball is a mental game and politics is physical.

PT: Arm twisting is very physical.

BB: It's more about endurance. I've seen people prevail in conference committees because they had the stamina to stay until 4:30 A.M., when everybody else was dozing off. Then they moved their bill.

PT: Let's talk about the 1996 elections, about the candidates.

BB: The '96 election will once again demonstrate that a sitting U.S. senator cannot win the presidency Senator Dole is an extremely experienced legislator, but I don't think he will win the presidency--if he gets the nomination.

The job of legislator is different from the job of president. It's to find consensus, common ground, take positions that have smooth edges, that are not too bold. A legislator running for president often shows the smooth edges, not bold direction. In a country in need of leadership, that's not what people want.

Clinton has done some good things and had to learn some things. What he did on NAFTA and China were very positive and in the long-term interest of the country. He didn't handle health care well. From time to time he has not been bold enough--say, race. He has convictions, but he doesn't use his bully pulpit enough to educate people about racial healing. That's why I think the election is uncertain right now.

PT: You still hold a piece of property in Crystal City, Missouri, where you grew up. What does that symbolize for you?

BB: You're talking about Hug Farm, in the bottomland between Crystal City and the Mississippi River. The river has always been a big metaphor in my thinking, as well as in my life. As a kid, when I used to train for basketball, I used to run through Hug Farm down to the banks of the Mississippi. Then I would stop and listen to the wind blowing through the cottonwood trees and hear the water lapping up on the shores, and then I'd run back. The river and the bluffs gave me a sense of permanence that I didn't have anywhere else.

PT: Your father typified the American Dream: out of high school at 16, he worked for the railroad and the bank--which he ended up owning. What do Americans today have to look forward to?

BB: The American Dream today has to be making good on the possibility of making America a pluralistic democracy with a growing economy that takes everybody to a higher ground. That isn't a whole lot different from my father's day. The idea is to challenge yourself on enough levels so that you get self-esteem from meeting those challenges, have enough resources to take care of your family and find enjoyment in nonmaterial things--sitting on a beach, reading a book, thinking, or playing with your kids.

The means to achieve that have changed dramatically and that's what makes us think we can't do what our parents did. We can, if we organize ourselves properly and selflessly

PT: Speaking of doing what your parents do, what if your daughter announced she wanted to go into politics?

BB: Well, I've never elbowed her into politics. Part of me might react like Calvin Hill, a great football player with Yale and the Dallas Cowboys. His son is Grant Hill, who became a great basketball star at Duke. He started getting a lot of publicity Calvin read an article about his son and it said, "Hill did this, Hill did that. And Calvin said to himself, hey wait a minute. I'm Hill. So there might be a little of that, but it would be short-lived. I want her to do what gives her the most self-fulfillment.

PHOTOS (BLACK & WHITE): Senator Bill Bradley