By Suzanne Dougherty
Congressional Quarterly

Electoral votes: 33

Delegates: 294

Chairman: Sheldon Silver

Hotel: The Century Plaza (310) 277-2000

1996 Election:
Clinton – 60%
Dole – 31%
Perot – 8%

If Bill Bradley's longshot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination was going to succeed in any major primary state, New York would have been it. Many people there remember him for his starring career with basketball's New York Knickerbockers and for his 18-year U.S. Senate career across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

But Bradley lost to the party's front-runner, Vice President Al Gore, in New York's March 7 primary, as he did in more than a dozen other states that voted the same day. His failure to win in a state that could have been more or less considered his home turf all but ended his hopes of winning the nomination.

Parsing the popularity of presidential candidates in a New York primary is no easy business. When New York Democrats vote in a presidential primary, they express their presidential preferences and vote by name for individual delegate candidates who are listed on the ballot by congressional district.

The state party uses a formula that takes into account the national Democratic Party's diversity goals and which delegate candidates received the most votes in each district, and then allots delegates to the presidential candidates based on votes they received within each congressional district.

The upshot of all of that higher math was that Bradley ended up with 55 of the state's 294 delegates. But most of the delegates interviewed by Congressional Quarterly concurred that there is no tension between the Gore and Bradley delegates, with the latter now pledged to back the vice president.

"I don't think that there is a Bradley viewpoint that is any different from the Gore viewpoint," said New York City attorney Mark Gasarch, a Bradley delegate. "We are all going to the convention to support Gore."

That does not mean that there aren't delegates from New York - a state with one of the nation's strongest liberal constituencies - who disagree with the centrist "New Democrat" approach implanted in the party by President Clinton and carried on by Gore.

"The centrist approach is dangerous because you can be considered a warmed-over Republican. We can't go so far over to the right that we lose some of our most important constituencies," said New York City Councilman Lawrence A. Warden, a delegate who said that he would raise his concerns at the convention.

The delegates represent a wide range of backgrounds that match the state's ethnically variegated Democratic electorate. The state party says that it met its goals for delegate selection of African-Americans, Hispanics, gays and lesbians and other minority groups.

The New York Democrats also applied one of the broader definitions of minorities: The party made a concerted effort to select delegates from the vast upstate region of the state.

According to delegate Denise King, chairman of the Democratic Rural Conference, the party included her group in the delegate selection plan as an under-represented minority. As a result, 17 of the delegates are members of the conference, which represents 42 of the state's 62 counties.

Democratic officials have good reason to cater to upstate interests. Though New York tends to lean Democratic in presidential election years, the ease with which Gore can carry the state - and the amount of resources he has to apply to win the state's vital 33 electoral votes - will depend on his strength upstate.

Clinton's unusually strong showing even in Republican strongholds upstate enabled him to trounce Republican Bob Dole in 1996 with 60 percent of the statewide vote, the highest presidential percentage in the state since Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson ran up 69 percent against Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964.

The other reason the Democrats need to appeal to voters north of New York City is the controversial Senate candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton. While the first lady is likely to win the votes of hardcore urban Democrats, she will need to win over upstate voters to achieve victory.

To do that, she will need to overcome criticism that she is a political "carpetbagger" and show that she understands the concerns of voters in a largely rural region dotted with aging industrial cities.

Clinton will not be a member of the New York delegation, but she has been named an honorary chairman along with the state's two U.S. senators: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whom she is running to succeed, and Charles E. Schumer.

Harold Ickes, a former top aide to President Clinton and now a campaign adviser to the first lady, is a New York delegate.

Presumably, Clinton's New York Democratic supporters will travel cross-country armed with "Hillary for Senate" placards and buttons that will surely be a target for media cameras and souvenir seekers.

Clinton is certain to mingle with the delegates from her adopted home state, though how much presence she will have at the convention is uncertain. She will speak to the convention on Aug. 14, the opening night, but there were reports in July that Gore campaign officials were urging her to otherwise keep a low profile in order to avoid stealing the spotlight from the presidential nominee.

All 19 Democrats who represent New York in the U.S. House will be members of the delegation in Los Angeles - including one who would have been regarded as a spy if he had shown up at the Democratic convention in Chicago four years ago. Three-term Rep. Michael P. Forbes, a former Republican who switched to the Democrats a year ago, is seeking to rally his new party's support for his tough re-election campaign this year.

The delegation is chaired by state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

The member of the New York contingent with the face most familiar to most Americans is not a professional politico, though. Christie Brinkley, a world-famous fashion model who is active in Long Island Democratic politics, is a delegate.

NEW YORK NOTABLES: U.S. Sens. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (retiring) and Charles E. Schumer; state Comptroller Carl McCall; state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the delegation chairman; state Assembly Majority Leader Michael J. Bragman; state Senate Minority Leader Martin Connor; New York City Public Advocate Mark Green; New York City Council Speaker Peter F. Vallone; former New York City Mayor David N. Dinkins; state Democratic Party Chairman Judith Hope; Harold Ickes, a former top adviser to President Clinton and now a leading strategist in first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign; Albany Mayor Gerald D. Jennings; fashion model Christie Brinkley.