LURAY, Va. -- In the banquet room of an antebellum mansion here, Michael Peroutka seems to sense what's nagging at his audience.
"I know what you're thinking," the Constitution Party candidate for president tells about 100 men gathered for a conservative Christian legal seminar. "Why does this nut cake do this? Why is he running for president of the United States when he doesn't stand a chance?"
As he answers his own question, the genial middle-age lawyer, virtually unknown outside of his suburban Maryland home, sounds a bit like Sen. John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat with whom he expects to share the November ballot in Maryland and 40 other states. Namely, that the USA Patriot Act is unconstitutional; that President Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction to lead the nation into war; and that a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is a bad idea (though for entirely different reasons).
But the rest of Peroutka's answer helps explain why his platform is far closer to the fringes of U.S. politics. And why it has even attracted the scrutiny of a national civil rights organization that tracks hate groups. Peroutka tells audiences that his campaign is divinely inspired and that his party seeks to remake the United States into a Christian state, one that no longer adheres to the separation of church and state.
"This is a spiritual battle," he said. "It's fought out in culture, it's fought out in politics, it's fought out in the economy. But it's a spiritual battle. It's a question of who is lord."
This is the answer that brings the loudest cheers from Peroutka's backers, many of whom say they felt abandoned this year as better-known candidates, including Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan, who share their views on abortion, gay rights and other issues, opted not to run. They give Peroutka the chance to gather more than the 98,000 votes registered nationally for the party's 2000 presidential candidate, Howard Phillips.
Peroutka is one of four minor-party presidential candidates on the ballot in a significant number of states this year, each with a message narrowcast to a relatively small group of followers who believe that neither Republicans nor Democrats address their concerns.
They can have an impact on the outcome of a campaign -- one need look no further than Ralph Nader's 2000 candidacy for evidence of that. At the same time, said Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota professor who tracks third-party campaigns, they are prone to unorthodox ideas that keep them from breaking through in a meaningful way.
Libertarians talk of a return to the gold standard. The Green Party, Jacobs said, wants to do away with the Defense Department. Peroutka's Constitution Party believes that the nation's founding documents have been deeply misunderstood and are in fact firmly rooted in Christian principles.
"They're almost utopians, in a way," Jacobs said. "They're folks who are really disenchanted with the political establishment and feel very intensely that something drastic needs to be done."
Peroutka said encouragement for his national bid has come from a coterie of Maryland Republican lawmakers who, given the state's strong Democratic leanings, are familiar with long-odds campaigns. For years, he has been a financial benefactor to a group that includes state Sens. Alex X. Mooney (R-Frederick), Andrew P. Harris (R-Baltimore County) and Nancy Jacobs (R-Harford) and Dels. Herbert H. McMillan and Donald H. Dwyer Jr., both Anne Arundel Republicans.
Several of the lawmakers said they respect Peroutka's gumption for entering the race, but most have avoided direct involvement. Dwyer, however, directs an educational-outreach effort that is part of the debt-collections law firm Peroutka runs in Glen Burnie. The Institute on the Constitution, as it is called, sells 12-week seminar kits about the biblical perspective on the U.S. Constitution for $145.
The freshman lawmaker, who has drawn the ire of his colleagues with his anti-immigrant and anti-gay rhetoric, said he "wholeheartedly supports what Mr. Peroutka is trying to bring to the American people."
Last month, Dwyer joined Peroutka on a campaign swing though Utah and California and said he found a surprising number who, like him, believe that government should be promoting religious rights.
