Monday, February 01, 1999
Newport native enters presidential race
Bauer has ties to Reagan
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Gary Bauer, the Newport steelworker's son who is trying to determine America's moral direction, Sunday announced he wants to be president.
Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, Mr. Bauer said he will seek the Republican nomination in 2000 on a platform that would oppose all abortions, embrace a 16 percent flat tax, and emphasize education and foreign policy.
“I love my country, and I believe I've got a governing vision and some ideas that I think ... will excite the American people,” he said.
Mr. Bauer, 52, was raised on Newport's east side and served as an adviser to President Reagan. He has gained political power and prominence as a spokesman for socially conservative issues.
Mr. Bauer said he is not yet well-known by the American people even though he was Mr. Reagan's undersecretary of education and domestic policy adviser, and he has spent the past decade building the Campaign for Working Families into a promoter of a conservative national agenda.
He has often clashed with other Republican Party leaders, candidates and elected officials, whom he accuses of abandoning or ignoring what he calls “pro family” issues and for moving closer to political moderates.
Mr. Bauer said he is eager to debate those issues and that agenda with anyone who wants the GOP nomination.
That group could include former Vice President Dan Quayle, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, former Red Cross head Elizabeth Dole, publisher Steve Forbes, U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona and U.S. Rep. John Kasich of Ohio.
“I've been involved in public policy and family issues ... and I'm anxious and enthusiastic about getting into this debate and seeing if we can elevate it, see if we can put some real issues on the table for the American people,” Mr. Bauer said.
He intends to invoke the name, legacy and agenda of his former boss at the White House. “It looks like we're going to have a Bush Republican in the race, and we may even have a Dole Republican,” Mr. Bauer said. “I intend to run as a Reagan Republican.”
Fourth District Republican Party Chairman Damon Thayer of Grant County said he had never seen Mr. Bauer speak until he watched him on television Sunday.
“I was impressed,” Mr. Thayer said. “I like his ideas, and he does a good job articulating his platform on some very important issues. And it certainly will be interesting and exciting having somebody from Northern Kentucky running for president.”
Mr. Bauer is less divisive than conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, who ran for president in 1992 and 1996 on many of the same issues Mr. Bauer is embracing, Mr. Thayer said.
But Mr. Thayer, who is hoping Gov. Bush gets in the race, was unsure of Mr. Bauer's electability. “The Republican Party needs a candidate and an agenda that can win the White House in 2000.”
Though he may lack the name recognition of some of the other GOP hopefuls, Mr. Bauer can raise campaign money and build a grass-roots political organization. Campaign for Working Families, Mr. Bauer's political action committee, raised $7 million last year.
Better-known pols, including Vice President Al Gore, Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, Mr. Quayle, Mr. Forbes and 1996 presidential candidate Lamar Alexander, didn't do as well.
At his previous power base, Mr. Bauer took the Washington-based Family Research Council from a handful of employees, 3,000 members and an annual budget of $200,000 to an organization of 120 employees, 500,000 members and a budget of almost $15 million.
Stuart Rothenberg, the editor and publisher of a Washington political newsletter, the Rothenberg Report, called Mr. Bauer “the conscience of one element of the Republican Party, the traditional social conser vative.”
But he doubts Mr. Bauer, a lawyer who has never held office, can win the nomination.
“Come on, let's get real,” Mr. Rothenberg said. “You look at him, you listen to him; he is articulate but not presidential. Not to demean what he has done or his speaking ability, but it's kind of mind-boggling that anyone would see him on the same level as the governor of a major state.”
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