ERRY, N.H. - Republican presidential candidates Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes answered questions from panelists and voters at a New Hampshire television station last night.
Both conservative candidates articulated similar themes on gun control, morality, campaign finance overhauls, and school funding at the forum at WNDS-TV.
Bauer, a former aide to President Ronald Reagan and former president of the Family Research Council, and Keyes, conservative radio talk-show host and a former United Nations ambassador, said little to set themselves apart from one another.
''This country is in the midst of the greatest moral crisis in our history,'' Keyes said last night, repeating a theme he has emphasized this week in the state.
While both represent the religious conservative wing of the Republican Party, each insisted that his campaign includes everyone.
''Our founders said that our rights came from our creator, God,'' Keyes said. Voters ''can stand with me. It doesn't matter what their race or background is.''
In response to a voter's question about campaign finance, Bauer said reform was needed. While he said the limits on individual contributions should be increased, he also criticized the influence of soft money - the unlimited donations of special-interest groups: ''We're seeing the effect that it has on our China policy. ... It has turned both parties to some extent into a China lobby.''
Keyes said he favors ''abolishing this whole phony system of regulations'' and replacing it with a system in which individual contributions are unlimited, but with full and immediate disclosure.
Another Republican presidential candidate, US Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke to the forum via satellite from Washington.
