Conservative Bauer to Take Presidential Step

WASHINGTON —  Conservative activist Gary Bauer, who clashed last year with Republican leaders he said were pushing the party toward the middle, will announce today that he is considering a run for the presidency.

Although he served as a high-ranking Reagan administration official and later built an influential national conservative advocacy organization, the Family Research Council, Bauer is not well known among voters. He is, however, well known among social conservatives and has loyal supporters who could help him in Republican presidential primaries that begin next year, several GOP sources said.

Bauer’s appearance today on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” was designed to give him exposure to a national political audience. He plans to file papers with the Federal Election Commission on Monday to open a presidential exploratory committee, which could raise money and hire a staff to assess Bauer’s prospects for 2000.

In an interview, Bauer, 52, said he is encouraged by the reception he received at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Northern Virginia earlier this month. He placed first in CPAC’s straw poll, ahead of Texas Gov. George W. Bush and publisher Steve Forbes, among others.

“I just feel that American politics in recent years hasn’t really been that relevant to the problems that average Americans are dealing with,” Bauer said. “I think I’ve got a governing vision, and people will react positively to it. And I’m anxious to get into the arena with some of the more established figures.”

Bauer took over the Family Research Council in 1989 and built the three-person outfit into a player in conservative circles with 120 employees and a $14-million budget.

The organization was associated with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family until Bauer broke off in the early 1990s to pursue a more activist political agenda. Bauer is on leave from the group to pursue the presidency.

Dobson and Bauer, who remain close, have criticized GOP congressional leaders, whom they believe had forsaken the party’s conservative base.

In last year’s elections, Bauer’s political action committee, Campaign for Working Families, spent millions supporting conservative candidates, including GOP primary candidates running against moderates backed by congressional leaders such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).