02/03/00- Updated 02:20 PM ET

Bauer Drops Out of Presidential Race

WASHINGTON (AP) - Gary Bauer, the janitor's son who served in Ronald Reagan's White House and mounted a presidential bid of his own, has decided to drop out of the race, a source close to the conservative activist said Thursday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Bauer plans to announce the move at a news conference Friday morning.

Bauer is a well-established social conservative who fared well in presidential debates, needling front-runner George W. Bush on abortion and China policy. He also had some success raising money, primarily through a large network of small donors built during his work as a conservative activist in Washington.

However, Bauer had trouble carving out a constituency in a crowded field of GOP conservatives.

He could not climb above 1% in the critical New Hampshire primary. With his wife Carol at his side, he conceded that contest Tuesday night, and said the voters of New Hampshire ''have not endorsed me but without hesitation I endorse them as being great citizens.''

Bauer has struggled to even make a dent in national polls, and finished in fourth place in the Iowa caucuses, ahead of only Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who has since dropped out of the race, and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who did not campaign in Iowa at all.

''Gary is having a news conference on Friday. That's all we're saying about it,'' said spokesman Tim Goeglein.

He would be the sixth Republican presidential candidate to drop out, leaving Bush, Sen. John McCain, millionaire publisher Steve Forbes and former ambassador Alan Keyes. Bush, Forbes and Keyes have had more success than Bauer drawing conservative votes.

Forbes can finance his own campaign, but needs a primary victory soon to maintain his viability. Keyes has done surprisingly well in Iowa and New Hampshire, but is not likely to challenge for the nomination.

Vice President Al Gore and former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley are the only two major Democratic candidates.

Bauer's campaign focused on what he considered to be the moral downfall of America. He denounced decisions in state courts that supported gay rights, promised to ''end abortion on demand'' as president, and railed against Clinton administration policy with China - urging the administration to revoke normal trade status for China and adopt a foreign policy that ''embraces our most basic human values.''

Despite a vast network of small-dollar donors, Bauer's campaign struggled against the fund-raising juggernaut of Bush, as well as the virtually unlimited funds of Forbes.

Bauer raised about $7 million in his quest for the presidency, far short of Bush's $68.7 million, McCain's $13.6 million - not to mention Forbes' estimated $400 million personal fortune, which he has willingly dipped into to finance his longshot campaign.

Before running for president, Bauer was head of the Family Research Council, an influential conservative group based in Washington. Under Bauer's leadership the FRC came to rival the Christian Coalition as the voice of grass-roots conservative activism in American politics. Bauer was a frequent guest on the Sunday morning news shows as head of FRC.

When he first announced his intention to run last January, Bauer said in part he was driven by a desire to ''put some real issues on the table for the American people'' during the 2000 campaign.

At his April announcement speech in his native Newport, Ky. Bauer said that family-friendly policies must be a hallmark of the next president. He often spoke of the long road from his hardscrabble youth in Newport, a gambling town at the time, to the White House and recalled his father's pride when the son went to work for Reagan.

''Reverence and respect are disappearing, and the question before us is: Will the family, as well?'' Bauer said. ''We clobber it with taxes; we marginalize it with judicial decrees; we undermine it with hostile policies and redefine it with trendy ideas.''

In the Reagan administration, Bauer became undersecretary of Education, as well as serving as Reagan's chief domestic policy adviser in the last year of his presidency.

Bauer's enthusiasm for Reagan is well known, and he frequently referred to the former president on the campaign trail, saying that Reagan's was his political hero.

-- Powder (Powder47keg@aol.com), February 03, 2000

Answers

I like Bauer, and appreciate his work with the FRC, and definitely agree both with the need for "family-friendly politics" and with his definition of what that is. But with Keyes in the race, he seemed like an also-ran.

-- Markus Archus (markus@archus.com), February 03, 2000.

Outrageous discrimination against Munchkins

-- (Tattoo@yellow.brickroad), February 03, 2000.

I wonder: Why did they tell us what all the candidates spent except Keyes? I, for one, was interested to know how much he spent to do "surprisingly well in Iowa and New Hampshire".

-- S. Kohl (kohl@hcpd.com), February 03, 2000.

---perhaps his (bauers) organization will now back Keyes' who is a better choice anyway. Once those registered primary voters see that a candidate is viable, they are less likely to vote for the "lesser of two evils" type candidate, which unfortunately, it appears the front runners on both sides seem to be so far. Bauers was too scary to most mainstreamers on the repub side, because he comes clearly across as a potential domestic ayatolah. Keyes is still in the running. People need to remember jessee ventura, he beat every poll, every paid political pontificator, and virtually all the media predictions. In other words, you can vote your real choice and see your candidate win, people need to always remember that. Just say no to voting for what some paid shill tells you is the "front runner". it's a lie, they don't poll peoples "hearts" ever. Time to end media manipulation of the electoral process, they deny people access to these "debates", the refuse to cover all the candidates or any third parties-at least not very much-and they generally push the two "front" runners of the two "major" political parties, when there isn't usually any practical difference between the two in reality. If you vote your heart, you'll do better for the country in the long run, just takes going to the polls several times and being disappointed a little, but watch the numbers steadily rise. We can break the stranglehold that the organized republican and democratic national committees have, once we all decide to do it. Just have to remember that "we" is a collection of "me's", so every single vote counts. Ya, ya, I know, supreme court nominees. So what, buncha slack jawed yokels anyway, none of those people get nominated unless they are thoroughly vetted and controlled enough to maintain and keep reinforcing the growing federal control status quo. It won't matter until honest people with ethics get into office. And another reason, wouldn't it be a pure joy to make the media look stupid, like what happened in minnesota? Wouldn't it?

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), February 03, 2000.

Little bug-eyed neutered prude scared the hell out of me.

Anyone who looks like that and spews such a vehement anti-fun, uptight, hellfire-and-brimstone christian fundamentalism is not qualitifed to run the United States of America.

Give me a red-blooded, horney, all-american guy like Clinton anytime.

Pete

-- Peter Starr (startrak@northcoast.com), February 03, 2000.

Bauer is too tiny to be president, and falling off that podium flipping a pancake finished him off.

Cruel, but true, and I gotta go with true. The world is not as it should be...

-- I'mSo (lame@prepped.com), February 03, 2000.

Pete- f

If Klinton is looks like all-American to you, you must be Chinese.

-- notsonutz (notsonutz@as.you), February 03, 2000.

Alan Keyes is being financed by the little guys like you and me that can only contribute $10.00 at a crack. Not $10 million. Amazing, how far's he's got on my 10 bucks. He seems to be the only one who makes any common sense at all. And he is certainly more qualified than either Dubya or Gore. If he's not on the ballot, I'll vote for Mr. NOTA (none of the above).

-- Mary (bdazzleddesigns@juno.com), February 04, 2000.