The poll was held at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference, the annual mecca for what there is of a vast right-wing conspiracy. (The buttons that said as much were a hot item at the conference, as were those suggesting “Lorena Bobbit for White House Intern.”)

It was apparent even then that the world would soon be seeing a kinder, gentler Gary Bauer. The former head of the socially conservative Family Research Council wanted to use the C-PAC venue to transform his activist credentials into Republican primary votes and knew he that to do so he would need to attract more than just angry white males.

Bauer shocked many Washington Republicans when he decided to support competitor Sen. John McCain’s campaign finance reform proposal. And in October he shocked everyone when he held a press conference to dispel a rumor that he was having an affair with a young campaign aide. This bizarre event attracted national media attention to what otherwise would have been nothing more than standard political insider gossip.

But no. Suddenly, Bauer was spewing lines straight out of Ms. magazine, saying he couldn’t “imagine that anybody on the campaign would object to me having meetings behind closed doors with professional women.” Now every chance he gets he repeats his favorite new phrase: he now has a glass door to connect his office to the outside world because “there are no glass ceilings in my campaign.”

Yet despite a fourth-place showing at the Iowa straw poll in August that suggested he was the emerging Christian conservative candidate to beat, Bauer now trails George W. Bush by 45 percentage points in most national polls and is still struggling to redefine himself as a mainstream candidate.

When asked if he’s the true Christian conservative candidate, he immediately takes exception. “I’m running as a conservative. It’s puzzling to me why observers want to mention my faith in describing me,” he says. “I believe everybody I’m running against in the Republican Party goes to church on Sunday and says they’re Christian.”

“There is no religious test [to run for] for office in America. The Constitution specifically prohibits it,” he continues. “I think voters will vote for me or against me depending on whether or not they agree with my China policy, my tax policy, what I think on abortion and so forth. How I worship is really none of their business.”

That’s quite a contrast to the speech he gave last April announcing his candidacy, in which he directly linked the bloodshed at Columbine High School to the crumbling of religious values in America.

“When you have a society where you’re no longer telling many of your kids that they’re created by God,” he said, “that their liberty comes from him, that virtue matters and death is never an option, whether it’s an unborn baby or settling a fight. I don’t think we can be surprised when we get the kind of horrible pictures and scenes that we increasingly see.”

Distancing yourself from your core group of supporters is quite a dangerous campaign strategy for primaries season. This early on, candidates usually work hard to keep their supporter base happy. Elizabeth Dole is exhibit A as to what happens if you don’t have a base of support beyond couch-loving Rosie O’Donnell fans. The money dries up and then you crash.

In fact, Bauer owes his staying power to a core group of evangelical activists who have donated time and money to his campaign. They’re just as passionate about their politics as they are about their sermons. To those core supporters, Bauer is a true hero for his anti-abortion work.

So why does he seem to be publicly backing away from them?

It’s obvious he’s trying to do everything he can to broaden his supporter base, which makes sense. But what he really needs to do is light a fire under die-hard Christian conservative voters, early on, in New Hampshire and Iowa, where, to everyone’s surprise, Pat Robertson finished second behind Bob Dole in the 1988 caucus. Bauer’s political franchise is built on Christian conservatism, and that’s where he’s most likely to succeed.

In many respects, Bauer seems like the logical successor to Robertson. Christian activism features prominently in a risumi that has included domestic policy positions in the Reagan administration and a 10-year gig working with religious radio broadcaster James Dobson.

Bauer capitalizes on the Reagan connection whenever he can, sprinkling speeches and fund-raising material with references to the Gipper and his view of America as the “shining city on the hill.” Like Reagan, Bauer supports decreasing taxes and increasing defense spending. He advocates a flat tax rate of 16 percent, with tax credits for families with children. He’s also already talking about trying to appeal to Reagan Democrats, playing up his blue-collar upbringing in Newport, Ky., and opposition to most favored nation status for China, even though Reagan never supported protectionist positions.

Bauer recalls sitting in his living room as a teenager watching the Gipper deliver his nominating speech for Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican National Convention. “I said to my father at the time that I thought Reagan would be president some day and I wanted to work with him in the White House,” he states proudly. “Twenty-one years later, I ended up being in the White House with a west wing office.”

It was an ambitious goal for any young person, let alone one who had grown up amid poverty and alcoholism in a shabby suburb, just across the river from Cincinnati. Newport was so deeply corrupted by Cleveland mobsters and riddled with bars, brothels and casinos that in 1957 Esquire magazine dubbed it “Sin City.”

Bauer’s father, Stanley, better known as “Spike,” worked various blue-collar jobs at the steel mill. The younger Bauer and his mother would often spend nights waiting for him to come home, knowing full well he was at the bar drinking his paycheck away. “I was usually at loggerheads with my father,” Bauer says matter-of-factly. “He wrestled with alcoholism his entire life, so things were always kind of dicey at home.”

Bauer’s grandmother had already lost one son to the mob, and she was intent on providing some structure and solace in her grandson’s chaotic childhood. She took him to the local Baptist church on Sundays, and eventually Bauer coaxed his parents to join him there. After his grandmother died, Bauer and his father were baptized together.

By age 17, Bauer’s already deepening moral convictions prompted him to join a group of ministers and local Republican businessmen who were organizing a crusade to push the mob out of town. He passed out leaflets and attended meetings. “It was a combination of being involved in the reform effort in town and also this exposure to Reagan that led me to be involved in politics,” he says.

The experience helped Bauer form his political views and would pay dividends down the road. When it came time to go to law school at Georgetown University and find a job in D.C., those Kentucky reform contacts came through in spades. The local Republican businessmen involved gave him a scholarship and even called the Republican National Committee and found him a part-time job in the research department. He went from the RNC to a position as a deputy director of the Direct Mail Marketing Association.

In 1980, Bauer left to take an unglamorous job as a policy analyst on the Reagan campaign. When Reagan won, he was rewarded with another low-level job in the office of domestic policy headed by Martin Anderson. For the first few months, Bauer didn’t have much of an assignment and found himself bored and frustrated. He complained at a policy development meeting that the administration was paying too little attention to values issues like school prayer and abortion. “Almost as a throw-away, Anderson said, “Fine, Bauer,” he recalls, “those issues are yours.”

Bauer soon leap-frogged his way up in the administration bureaucracy, taking top positions near the end of Reagan’s second term after other people left for private-sector work. He became deputy undersecretary of education, then undersecretary and later worked as head of the domestic policy office.

“[Bauer] became our go-to guy,” says conservative consultant Craig Shirley. “He always returned our phone calls and was more than happy to take our message and take it as far as he could inside the administration.”