Bush first phoned up Olasky in 1993 after hearing that Olasky had been "born again" at the age of 26, and after reading some of his scholarship.

The two men met for an hour. Then in 1995, during a controversy surrounding the drug program Teen Challenge -- which includes a program of religious conversion to Christianity -- Bush sought Olasky's advice, which entailed less government regulation for faith-based organizations. Amid vociferous criticism that he was trying to weaken the boundaries between church and state, Bush pushed laws that promoted more activities by the church, such as day-care and drug-treatment centers.

Olasky was the subject of a profile in the New York Times Magazine last fall, "Where W. Got His Compassion" -- during the writing of which Olasky tried to convert the article's author, New Republic senior editor David Grann.

In the article, Olasky said that the success of these programs should belie any discomfort anyone feels about the proselytizing that takes place within them. "Are you willing to put up with these religious practices that you feel very uncomfortable with but nevertheless you see the success of?" he asked. "Or would you rather end those practices and see more assaults, rapes, drug use and homicides?"

Said Olasky on Thursday night about his relationship with the governor, "he likes my writing and I like his leadership."

Bush has experienced a bit of trouble as of late because of his proximity to people criticized for a lack of tolerance.

He has repeatedly evaded questions about his Louisiana campaign chairman, Gov. Mike Foster, who was fined $20,000 for hiding the fact he bought mailing lists from klansman David Duke. Bush also refused to say an unkind word about former Republican Pat Buchanan, much to the chagrin of supporters in the Republican Jewish Coalition, who consider some of Buchanan's rhetoric teetering on anti-Semitism. And since kicking off the South Carolina primary campaign earlier this month at Bob Jones University, Bush has been slammed for refusing to say he did more than "disagree" with the anti-Catholic leanings of the school, where interracial dating is verboten.

"Don't judge my heart," Bush has snarled when asked about his reticence on these and other issues. "My little brother Jeb married a Mexican girl," he said another time when pressed about his speech at Bob Jones.

Olasky, whom Bush once appointed to head up a gubernatorial task force on religion, has played a controversial role in his campaign at least once before. Times' columnist William Safire wrote recently that an issue of Olasky's World that came out before the South Carolina primary was "religio-political sleaze in action." Safire wrote that World slammed McCain as "a conniving politician" who used "liberal, even Marxist, terminology," and, in reference to wife Cindy McCain's past drug addiction, wrote, "for all his dependence on his wife's money, John McCain doesn't appear to be a particularly attentive husband."

Olasky said he has worked on 20 books and written more than 500 articles, none of which contain a whiff of bigotry. "I have been very, very vigorously trying to bring Christians and Jews together in a variety of social movements." He added that in between the time that he was Jewish and the time he was "born again," he went through a period when he was "very hostile to Judaism." But he's long past that, he said.

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