"What I'm learning," Dwyer said, "is that the things that we speak about . . . even though they sometimes may sound politically incorrect, they reach into the heart of true American citizens."
Some ideas at the heart of Peroutka's campaign have also drawn the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights law firm that tracks hate groups. Mark Potok, editor of the center's monthly intelligence report, said his group took note when Peroutka received a rare national endorsement from the League of the South, which he describes as a coalition of hard-line, "neo-Confederates" who espouse racist, anti-gay and anti-immigrant ideas.
The League of the South and the Constitution Party are "intimately related," Potok said. "About the only real differences are the Constitution Party essentially says nothing about race, at least explicitly, and it has no position on secession," the rights of Southern states to secede from the Union.
Otherwise, he said, they are extremely similar. Their key issues are a fervent opposition to abortion, spirited support for gun and states' rights, and strident views about the role Christianity should be playing in American life, he said.
Peroutka does not entirely dismiss Potok's assessment. A strict reading of the Constitution, he says, leads him to believe that the federal government has too much centralized power. "As a result of the War Between the States," Peroutka said in an interview, "you have a central government that tells you how much water you can have in your toilet bowl."
"As far as race is concerned," Peroutka said, "I believe there is one race, and that's the human race. That's my position."
Doug Phillips, a Peroutka supporter whose father, Howard Phillips, founded the Constitution Party in 1992 and ran as its presidential candidate in 1992, 1996 and 2000, said it is inevitable that fringe groups will latch on to parties that are in their infancy.
"But Michael is not a fringe candidate," Phillips said. "If ideas are wacky, inappropriate or offensive to our beliefs, they won't have credence with the party's leaders, and they certainly won't be put forward as part of our platform."
Peroutka was not, Phillips acknowledged, the party's initial choice to top the presidential ticket.
Earlier this year, he said, former Alabama chief justice Roy S. Moore -- famous for fighting to keep a reproduction of the Ten Commandments in the courthouse -- considered a run. When that fell through, Peroutka emerged as a consensus candidate.
His telegenic good looks and genial style with audiences had appeal. As did his ability to spend his own money. Records show he has lent $160,000 to his campaign.
Party leaders overlooked a trail of personal problems unearthed this year by the Baltimore City Paper, which included being stopped in the early 1990s on suspicion of driving under the influence -- he was not convicted -- and a painful split with his wife's two teenage daughters from a previous marriage. The couple lost custody of the girls to the state.
Peroutka said those episodes "weren't hidden from anybody." Although some say they weaken his image as a family man, Peroutka said he "only finds it relevant insofar as I was shown the evil that occurs when the jurisdiction of the family is invaded by agencies of the state."
Phillips said the Constitution Party doesn't expect Peroutka to win the White House. His supporters "understand that a party won't be built in a day." At the same time, he said, this is not "a lark. The folks I know have no interest in integrating back into the Republican Party."
Jacobs predicted that the Constitution Party will pass the 2004 election without registering much more of a blip on the electoral map than in 2000. But the long odds don't trouble Peroutka.
Speaking to the gathering at the Mimslyn Inn, he recounts how other significant concepts were, at first, dismissed as absurd: The Earth is round; humans will take flight; man will set foot on the moon.
"With that bit of background, let me share with you an absurd idea: We can restore the American Constitution," Peroutka tells them. "Is that absurd? Well, if it is, then there's hope for it."
