August 2, 1999
Web posted at: 3:42 a.m. EDT (0742 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, August 2) -- The biggest challenge facing America is racial division, says presidential candidate and former Senator Bill Bradley.

"I've always believed that the racial divide in America was our fundamental and deepest challenge," Bradley said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.

"The need to be able to see beneath skin color or eye shape to the individual is tremendously important," he said.

Bradley also said soft money should be banned from the political process.

"Everybody knows that the people with the big bucks, particularly in soft money, have a bigger clout in the process," he said. "I think they're fed up."

Instead, general elections should be funded from public coffers, he said. "We spend $900 million a year promoting democracy abroad. I think we ought to be able to spend the same amount of money ensuring the special interests don't have a grip on the legislative jugular in this country."

Bradley said he would provide free TV time for candidates.

He also would encourage more people to participate in elections by using incentives similar to those adopted by some states, such as same-day registration. In Minnesota, one in six voters registers and votes in the same day, he said. In Oregon, residents are able to vote by mail.

The former basketball star said he would continue to support NAFTA. The trade agreement has hurt some Americans, he said, "but overall it's a benefit to the country. The answer to a lot of worldwide problems is more trade, more fairly shared, worldwide."

On recent tension between China and Taiwan, he said, "The U.S. should say to the Taiwanese government that if they take steps toward independence, that they cannot count on us for any help."

At the same time, he said, the U.S. should make it clear to the People's Republic of China that, if Taiwan does not take steps toward independence, the U.S. would support Taiwan if China were to be the aggressor. "The `one nation, one China' is an important policy," he said.

Monday, August 2, 1999

• Clinton denies he was physically abused as a child
• Hatch works on name recognition in Iowa
• Audit: Government owed $49 billion in unpaid payroll taxes
• Federal government beats projections in welfare-to-work hires
• PBS president says political list-sharing will end
• Lawmakers work to reach compromise on tax cut plans
• White House says welfare-to-work program a success
• Biggest national problem is racial division, Bradley says
• EPA restricts 2 pesticides, but denies any food safety threat
• McCaffrey: Anti-drug campaign's success greater than expected
• Huang hearing postponed by Republican demand for testimony
• House finishing work on $12.6 billion foreign aid bill
• Clinton, Gore say final farewell to friend, fund-raiser
• White House pledges help for Hispanic children
• Bush forged business careers in oil patch and baseball
• Hatch questions judge selections in Clinton friends' cases
• WASHINGTON YESTERDAY: A photographer's view of Nixon's era
• Mississippi tepid elections heating up
• Angry women come to Dole's aid
• Hubbell says probers asked about Clintons' sex lives

• Bush campaigns in New Hampshire
• McCain talks to S.C. veterans
• Bradley gains in New York poll
• Forbes gets approval of religious conservative leaders

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