Gary Bauer Shuts Down Presidential Campaign.

Religious Right leader Gary Bauer ended his long-shot campaign to become the Republican Party's presidential nominee after a last-place showing in the Feb. 1 New Hampshire primary.

Bauer, formerly head of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based Religious Right group affiliated with Focus on the Family, attracted little attention during his campaign and remained mired in the single digits in national polls. Although he managed to raise $7 million from supporters nationwide, he won only 9 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses Jan. 24 and fared even worse in New Hampshire, attracting about three-quarters of 1 percent of the vote.

Bauer, a former Reagan administration staffer, ran openly as a Religious Right candidate, stressing his opposition to legal abortion, his advocacy of official prayer and posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools, his opposition to gay rights and his support for school vouchers. However, he found himself outmaneuvered by Alan Keyes, a political commentator with similar views, and millionaire businessman Steve Forbes, both of whom actively courted the Religious Right vote. (Forbes withdrew from the race after a disappointing third-place showing in the Feb. 8 Delaware primary.)

Although he participated in all of the early debates, Bauer's candidacy garnered little media attention. The mentions he did get were often negative or dealt with the quixotic nature of his campaign. Last fall Bauer called a press conference to deny rumors that he was having an affair with a young campaign aide. The day before the New Hampshire primary he captured headlines and appeared on many newscasts -- but only because he fell off the stage during a pancake-flipping contest.

Announcing the termination of his campaign in Washington Feb. 4, Bauer conceded that he had "under performed" but insisted that his message had "caught on with the other candidates."

Twelve days later Bauer endorsed John McCain for president, a move expected to help the Arizona senator among religious conservatives. He remains coy about his future plans, indicating that he might not return to the Family Research Council and instead might start a new organization in Washington.

In other news about campaign 2000:

* Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has drawn fire for speaking at Bob Jones University, a rigidly fundamentalist school that bans interracial dating.

GOP rival John McCain said he had not been invited to appear at the school and that he disagreed sharply with BJU's approach to race. "If I were there," he remarked, "I would condemn openly the policies of Bob Jones, because I would want to make sure that everybody knew that this kind of thing is not American."

Democratic candidate Bill Bradley, speaking in San Francisco Feb. 3, noted that BJU lost its tax-exempt status more than 20 years ago when it refused to drop its racial policies. "We had to fight to deny tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University unless it changed that policy," Bradley said. "And yet the Republican candidate for president yesterday goes to Bob Jones University to make a speech about what conservatism is in this country. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that is what conservatism is, Bob Jones University, and it should be rejected."