As more than 1,000 people tucked into their salads and filet mignon at the first-ever Florida Family Policy Council dinner, two giant television screens broadcast news clips about the group's efforts to ban same-sex marriage and to prolong Terri Schiavo's life.

Then, James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family and an icon of the national Christian conservative movement, appeared on screen, praising the work of the evening's keynote speaker, Gov. Jeb Bush.

Dobson pledged that the Florida Family Policy Council would carry on the Republican governor's conservative ideological agenda -- even after Bush's two terms in office draw to a close.

''Ladies and gentleman, we're unapologetically pro-life and pro-family,'' the council's president, John Stemberger, boasted in a declaration that elicited spontaneous and enthusiastic applause in an Orlando hotel ballroom Friday night.

The message was clear to the Republican candidates who had flocked to the event to meet voters: fashioning themselves in Bush's ideological image will help land the votes of the conservative constituency they need to win a Republican primary election.

Christian conservative voters in Florida were credited in 2004 with returning President Bush to the White House and getting Mel Martinez elected to the Senate.

As Gov. Bush carefully outlined his legacy in his speech, he stopped short of endorsing either one of his would-be Republican successors, Attorney General Charlie Crist or State Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher.

Both men competed openly Friday night to be the standard-bearer sought by the council, which announced its intention to set up a separate legislative arm to lobby state officials on the organization's top priorities: ending abortion, promoting a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and encouraging the appointment of conservative judges.

On Friday, Gallagher had the clear advantage, in part because Stemberger has already endorsed Gallagher. Gallagher sat at the front of the room and led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Crist, not originally slated to attend the awards dinner, caused a minor uproar when he said he had a scheduling conflict. The attorney general rearranged his schedule to attend after it became clear he would be one of the only Republican candidates for statewide office not making an appearance Friday night.

During the dinner and Bush's speech, Crist sat in the middle of the room at a table with state Sen. Mike Haridopolos, a conservative Republican supporter from Melbourne.

The attorney general was far removed from the head table where Gallagher had a prominent seat and where donors who had paid $10,000 and $5,000 to sit at VIP tables -- valuable real estate that allowed them to be photographed with the governor at a private reception before the dinner -- sat.

Gallagher, although not singled out by Bush during his remarks, made it very clear in an e-mail sent out to supporters just before the dinner that he considered himself the heir to Bush's conservative legacy and was honored to attend the dinner with the governor.

''We've been spreading a positive message based on the mainstream Florida values that we cherish, and that Jeb Bush and Republican leaders in Tallahassee have spent the last seven years fostering throughout our state,'' Gallagher told supporters.

No matter how conservative the two candidates appear in the months leading up to the primary, whoever wins will have the backing of the more traditional Republican establishment and campaign coffers in the general election against the Democratic candidate, whether it's U.S. Rep. Jim Davis or state Sen. Rod Smith.

But Bush, while acknowledging that reaching out to Christian conservatives is key to winning a primary election, said he'd let those voters decide who was the best man to assume his legacy.

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