The least known, but one of the most eagerly courted, screening
committees for the next G.O.P. presidential nominee met recently in
Colorado Springs, Colo., amid the panoramic opulence of the Broadmoor
Hotel and Resort. The four-day meeting of affluent Evangelicals was
billed as a "summer family retreat," and the kids rode ponies and
played water sports while their folks chewed over immigration and gay
marriage. The political group, called Legacy, aims for mystique: it
has received no media attention and is unknown even on the Web. Yet
all the marquee '08 Republican candidates have spoken to Legacy or
met with its founders, having come to regard the group as a prime
audience in these early days of raising money and trying to conjure
momentum. "If you're running for President," said a close associate
of President George W. Bush's, "it is the place to go." One of the
group's first projects: supplying cash and ground troops to help
South Dakota's John Thune beat Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle
in 2004. Thune, a presidential prospect, electrified the Broadmoor
audience, which also heard from Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee,
Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and
John Cornyn of Texas.

Legacy was started by two Dallas businessmen: Ray Washburne, a real
estate and Tex-Mex-restaurant baron, and George Seay III, founder of
the Seay Stewardship & Investment Co. and grandson of former Texas
Governor Bill Clements. Its members are mostly young--in their 30s
and 40s--and wealthy, through entrepreneurship, inheritance or both.
They are Christians concerned with social justice, in the mold of
Rick Warren of Purpose Driven Life fame, and practice their faith
without, as a Broadmoor attendee put it, "quoting Leviticus"--a
reference to the harder-edged rhetoric at other gatherings of social
conservatives.

Organizers declined to be interviewed, saying they want to continue
working below the radar. Cornyn tells Time that the founders "have
been beneficiaries of the political activity of their parents, and
want to step up now that they're the next generation
in line." Legacy, he says, fills
"a vacuum between national organizations and political activists who
are grandparents."

Speakers at the retreat in late July, which drew 165 families,
included Matt Daniels of the Alliance for Marriage, and an
immigration panel featured tax-cut leader Grover Norquist and Hugh
Hewitt, a conservative radio host and blogger. Reflecting Legacy's
aim for social impact, Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission
talked about heading the U.N. genocide investigation in Rwanda.
Audience members rose to describe a trip they had taken there. The
weekend ended in the Cheyenne Lodge with a family worship service led
by Mark Brewer of California's Bel Air Presbyterian Church. He was
Ronald Reagan's last pastor, now ministering to a group hungry to
amplify Reagan's spirit.