WELL-ARMED CONSERVATIVE
TAKES AIM AT DEM AGENDA

By STEVE DUNLEAVY

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MANCHESTER, N.H.
GARY BAUER might be running last in the GOP primary punch-up, but he was first to chuckle as Bill Clinton coronated himself as the Messiah of Prosperity last night.

“I believe Bill Clinton has been as responsible for prosperity as Al Gore was responsible for inventing the Internet,” he told me in reference to the president’s final State of the Union message.

“Let’s look at it with straight talk. The stock-market boom came only after the Republicans took over the Congress for the first time in 50 years.

“The Republican Congress continually held off Bill Clinton’s big spending plans and entrepreneurs saw a healthy Congress that encouraged this prosperity. Of course, as usual, Clinton takes credit.”

Yesterday, Bauer — making up for lost votes and low bucks — got some fire going among his opponents.

“The other candidates are all good, fine people. But during the most recent debate, I challenged them all about the Second Amendment — the right to bear arms,” he said.

“Yeah, did you see that, the way they dodged it all?” asked Pete Goyette, owner of Pete’s Gun Store, after shaking hands with Bauer.

Bauer zigzagged across the state yesterday, calling his campaign swoop “the right to bear arms” offensive.

Bauer dropped in on Mitch Rosen, who worked for 11 years as a stockbroker on Wall Street and lived on Horatio Street in Manhattan.

“I left New York because of the political climate,” Rosen said. “I felt I was losing my freedom.”

Rosen runs and owns a custom gun-holster business. He makes them on the premises.

“Made in the USA,” beamed Bauer as he saw Rosen’s wares.

“The person who had this space before me was convinced I was using it as a warehouse and buying the holsters from Taiwan or South America. It’s all made here. Most of the jobs in

this town have gone south of the border,” said Rosen.

An hour later, Bauer dropped in on Riley’s Gun Store.

Store owner Ralph De?Micco had just returned from the legislature in Concord, where he and supporters are fighting three bills that chip away at the Second Amendment.

“This store has been here for 26 years. I feel under siege — and so do a lot of law-abiding citizens,” De?Micco said.

Bauer replied, “I get absolutely outraged. As soon as there is a tragedy like Columbine, Clinton, Gore, Kennedy and Barney Frank from Massachusetts start blaming law-abiding citizens and gun-store owners.

“They say nothing about the fact that from a tender age to teen-age, young people are exposed on movies and television to over 16,000 scenes of violence.

“This is Hollywood. And yet it is Hollywood that is eating away at the Second Amendment. And with millions of campaign dollars, Hollywood props up the Clinton-Gore policy on abortion and partial-birth abortion.

“Theirs is a culture that teaches a kid no respect for human life. Why wouldn’t young people, if there’s an unwanted child coming along, say, ?Well, let’s just get rid of it’?”

Bauer did a string of radio and TV interviews and then pressed the flesh at Burger King, Wendy’s and McDonald’s — an equal-opportunity burger-Bauer.

“I have to say, however reluctantly, I give credit to Clinton and Gore, who get up early in the morning to press their liberal agenda of banning the Ten Commandments in courthouses, school prayer, ripping the Second Amendment to shreds and championing abortion,” Bauer told me over a milkshake.

“I just wish my opponents and good friends would embrace the same enthusiasm to push our conservative agenda.”