Gore Distanced From Clinton?

President Clinton said Monday he is not offended that Vice President Al Gore may not want his help in seeking to win the White House.

"No one can help anyone else in a campaign beyond a certain point," Mr. Clinton said.

The president told reporters he agrees with Gore, who told The Washington Post last week that his bid for the Democratic nomination is a "very personal quest" and that he might ask Mr. Clinton not to help his campaign.

To be successful, "I have to have a very personal connection and line of communication with the American people," said Gore, comparing the campaign to his first race for the House in 1976, when he asked his late father, a senator, not to speak on his behalf.

"I think that's a decision he ought to make at an appropriate time," the president said following a meeting with his economic advisers. "I agree with what he said about it. It won't matter who said it as much as it matters what is said. I just want the American people to make this judgment based on what's best for them."

Gore said while he has not decided whether he would turn down Mr. Clinton's help, "I may do that."

The president didn't seem to mind.

"The candidates will be the major players. Everybody else, to a greater or lesser degree, is in a subordinate role," Mr. Clinton said.

Gore criticized Democratic opponent Bill Bradley's suggestion that the former basketball star was waging a "left of center, insurgent" bid for the White House. Gore said a more accurate description of Bradley's 18-year record as a senator from New Jersey would be "cautious moderate."

Despite his professed desire to be his own man on the campaign trail, Gore acknowledged that Mr. Clinton already is injecting himself into the race by wooing major donors and talking up his vice president whenever and wherever possible.

On Thursday, Mr. Clinton praised Gore as "by far the best vice president in history" and said he did the right thing by moving his campaign operation out from Washington to Nashville, Tenn. "And I expect him to win," Mr. Clinton said at a news conference.

Gore said Mr. Clinton has done a "superb" job but added that he understood the American people's anger and disappointment with the president over his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

But, Gore said, his campaign is more about tomorrow than yesterday.

"In this campaign, the American people want to look at who can best lead them in the future. I don't think they want to look at the past," he said.