Frame Game

Tactics and Beliefs

{{Slate’s Political Roundup#73099}}

After absorbing Al Gore’s attacks in Iowa, Bill Bradley is telling New Hampshire voters that Gore’s criticisms of him illustrate the difference between Gore’s politics of “tactics” and Bradley’s politics of “belief.” At a campaign stop Thursday, Bradley argued, “In the course of this campaign, I’ve tried to [offer] a politics that’s rooted in belief and conviction, and not simply in tactics.” Sunday on This Week, he repeated, “The new politics doesn’t focus on tactics. It focuses on belief and conviction.”

Question to Sen. Bradley: Is this distinction between your “beliefs” and your opponent’s “tactics” a belief, or a tactic?