Bradley set to endorse Dean

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Former Sen. Bill Bradley is set to endorse Howard Dean today for the Democratic presidential nomination, giving the front-running former governor of Vermont a clean sweep of the party's 2000 contenders.

The Bradley endorsement, confirmed by the Dean campaign Monday, comes less than a month after Dean won the support of Al Gore, the 2000 nominee. Officially, the campaign said Dean will appear today with "a special guest" in New Hampshire and Iowa, sites of the first two contests.

Bradley, a three-term senator and one-time New York Knicks star, ran a presidential campaign that appealed to independent, well- educated voters who are gravitating this year to Dean. He was the only Democrat to challenge then-Vice President Gore.

Eric Hauser, who was Bradley's press secretary, says the two have much in common. "They share a tendency to think outside the box, a tendency to follow their own instincts and not the regular orthodoxy of the party," he said.

One difference: Dean is an aggressive campaigner who doesn't hesitate to knock the competition, while Bradley rarely responded to Gore's attacks.

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