Bauer done with election, but not with political arena/ Former

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Apr 2, 2000 | by Mary Boyle

WASHINGTON - Gary Bauer knew he was in for a fight when he stepped off the sidelines and onto the stage of national politics to run for president, carrying the banner of religious conservatives.

He never expected he'd leave the race a year later - battered by criticism from his closest allies in the Christian community.

But now, 15 months after beating George W. Bush in a straw poll of conservative Republicans, the chants of "Bauer Power" have faded and he is assessing his next move.

Perhaps surprisingly, running for president again is not out of the question.

"We'll look at how events unfold and see if it makes sense down the road to run again," he said in an interview with The Gazette.

Campaign ended in a furor

Bauer was not scared off by the bruising nominating process that saw him spend $12 million to win just two delegates before dropping out of the race in February.

He may have been a political novice, but Bauer was not naive when decided to run and quit as head of the Family Research Council - the former lobbying arm of James Dobson's Focus on the Family.

In fact, Bauer, 53, knew full well what he was getting into, having spent more than 20 years in Washington, including a stint as a policy adviser in the Reagan White House.

It was with Reagan that Bauer's socially conservative agenda caught Dobson's attention. Over the years, he came to be Dobson's closest political adviser.

And despite Bauer's relative anonymity outside religious conservative circles, he fared well in the jostling for position among potential presidential candidates. Organized enough to raise more than $12 million, he stayed in the race longer than some of his high-profile GOP rivals, such as Dan Quayle and Elizabeth Dole.

But name recognition is the lifeblood of politics, and Bauer couldn't compete with the likes of Bush, Sen. John McCain and publisher Steve Forbes.

And when Bauer finally did get national headlines, it was not the kind he wanted.

Bauer found himself at the center of a furor about McCain's attack on the religious conservative wing of the GOP when he endorsed the Arizona senator after dropping out of the White House race.

"I think I made the right decision and if I had to do it over again, I'd do it again," Bauer said.

Bauer is mending fences

But two months after quitting the race, Bauer is not recuperating from the campaign trail. He's still dealing with the political fallout from the McCain endorsement - and the criticism is coming from his friends.

Religious conservative leaders expressed shock and disappointment at Bauer's endorsement of McCain, whose pro-life credentials, among other things, have been questioned by social conservatives.

Dobson called the endorsement "troubling" and "hard to understand."

Michael Farris, a prominent religious conservative who heads the Home School Legal Defense Association, predicted Bauer's political death, though he declined to comment for this article.

Evangelist Jerry Falwell chided Bauer for sending a "confusing message to conservative Republicans."

Things only got worse for Bauer when McCain gave a speech - with Bauer sitting in the front row - condemning Falwell and Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance."

But Bauer, the son of an alcoholic janitor who grew up thinking he was destined to run a gas station, shows no signs that he plans to lower his profile.

Relaxed and upbeat in a luncheon interview on Capitol Hill, he talked about the future: running his political action committee, giving speeches and possibly making another run for the White House.

He has no ill will toward his critics, he said, and fully expects to work again with all of them.

"Presumably, friends and allies can disagree without being disagreeable," he said.

Bauer stands by endorsement

Bauer dropped out of the race after a weak showing in the New Hampshire primary and on Feb. 16, he endorsed McCain.

It came down to this: Bauer liked McCain's reform message and thought McCain had a better chance than Bush of beating Vice President Al Gore in the general election.

What's more, Bauer despised the smear campaign he saw as being waged against McCain in South Carolina.

"There were calls made, thousands of calls made, saying that the senator had two illegitimate children," Bauer said, adding he did not know which organization made the calls. "I felt he and his family were being terribly treated there and it embarrassed me as a Christian and a Republican."

So Bauer met with McCain to discuss an endorsement. Bauer came away with a "certain degree of confidence" that, if elected, McCain would choose a running mate and judges with anti-abortion views.

The endorsement was made, and likely would have been fast forgotten had not McCain soon given a speech that was widely viewed as an attack on the religious conservative wing of the GOP.

Bauer, who was campaigning with McCain at the time, saw the speech about 30 minutes before McCain delivered it. Because it had already been released to the press, nothing could be deleted.