Her Brother’s Keeper : Politics: A lifetime of going against the grain has prepared Bay Buchanan well for running Pat Buchanan’s renegade campaign to oust a sitting President.

When Angela (Bay) Buchanan left California to direct her brother’s slashing campaign against George Bush, the exuberant, strong-willed Republican stalwart demonstrated what friends and critics alike already knew: She is a loyalist to the core--and she is willing to take on anyone--family, friends or the President of the United States--as she stands by her convictions.

It certainly wasn’t the first time Bay Buchanan had gone against the grain, professionally or personally. Reared in a family of devout Roman Catholics, she became a Mormon and married another Mormon at a ceremony boycotted by her parents. In recent years she challenged a fellow Republican for the GOP nomination for California state treasurer. Now, she is helping brother Pat, the conservative commentator, take exception to the way their party’s leader has run the nation.

“I don’t have any hesitancy going up against the Establishment,” Buchanan, 43, says with a laugh.

“Bay is a hard-driving, determined woman who sets her goals and doesn’t let anything get in the way,” notes Greg Haskin, executive director of the Republican Party in Orange County. Adds Buck Johns, a developer and GOP activist: “She’s not a go-along gal, but she’s bright and gifted. . . . Pat and Bay are people of great conviction.”

For her part, Buchanan concedes that most observers feel it is unlikely her brother will actually deny Bush the renomination, since Pat Buchanan has garnered few delegates even while winning up to 37% of the vote in the early Republican primaries. But that isn’t necessarily the point, she suggests.

“It’s still a long shot,” she says. “But it can be done. Our goal is to go to California, run a real strong primary and then go to (the GOP convention in) Houston--and let the millions of Republicans who feel the present leadership of our party has abandoned them know that they have a leader who will carry that banner.”

When it’s all over, the divorced mother of three boys intends to return to California, where she owns a home in Irvine, to create some stability for the kids, to make some money and then, maybe, run for office again.

For now, as her brother’s campaign director, Buchanan works from early morning until night--whatever it takes--in a small corner office on the ground floor in one of the many glass high-rises in suburban Fairfax County, Va., just a stone’s throw outside the Washington Beltway. The Venetian blinds are drawn so she doesn’t have to look out on the parking lot and a huge Dumpster.

As dozens of young workers bustle about, the suite of offices is a whirl of activity.

“I let them do everything they can and then just try to pull things together,” Buchanan says. “As chairman, my job is to make sure this place runs smoothly, to oversee its operations. I have the right people in place to have that happen and at the same time to closely work with Pat--and to look out for him.”

Throughout the day, the candidate and his sister consult frequently by telephone. “The message is the critical part,” she says. “Pat knows exactly what he wants to say. And I have a real good sense of what should be said to bring people aboard.”

Bay Buchanan also helps develop the campaign ads, which have been heavily criticized as racist and homophobic.

But she sees the ad campaign as a positive: “I don’t think any one person gets the credit. I usually bring two or three people in with me and we’ll sit down. . . . We laugh and throw lots of things on the table, and something strikes us all and we realize that’s the way to go.”

Says Haskin: “Bay likes a good fight. She likes the competition. She likes the challenge. She likes the opportunity to pull out a few surprises. And she has a reputation for not worrying about the mainstream or what’s politically correct.”

When Buchanan came to Washington with her brother’s campaign, she was returning to the city where she and her eight brothers and sisters were raised. After she was born, several of her brothers, still babblers, were unable to pronounce baby ; hence, the nickname Bay stuck.

At a time when few women studied math, Buchanan earned a degree in it from Rosemont College, a Catholic school outside Philadelphia. At Pat’s recommendation, she then enrolled in 1971 at McGill University in Montreal to earn a master’s degree.

Buchanan took a leave to work as a bookkeeper in Richard M. Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign. But within a few years, she became so disillusioned by the Watergate scandal that she decided to leave the country.

“They were all people I knew, and one was pitted against another,” she recalls.

In Sydney, Australia, she found work as a junior accountant. “But they also wanted someone to be a gal Friday, someone to go up to a lawyer’s office to pick up papers or deliver (things),” she says. “As a result, I walked all over Sydney. I was just thrilled.”

In her spare time, Buchanan did postgraduate work at the University of New South Wales and dated an American businessman who had been a Mormon missionary. He introduced her to the Church of Latter-day Saints.

Their courtship ended after six months, but his message proved more enduring. By 1976, she returned to the United States and went to work for Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign. She also continued to “study and look into” the Mormon faith--and soon she was baptized as a Mormon.

“It gave me a much clearer insight into this world and why I was here and what I wanted to do--real guidelines,” Buchanan says. She is also raising her sons, ages 9, 7 and 4, as Mormons.

In 1981 Reagan appointed her U.S. Treasurer. In that job, she promoted U.S. savings bonds, supervised the U.S. Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and converted the copper penny to zinc as a cost-saving measure.

A year later Buchanan married William R. Jackson, an Orange County insurance attorney and fellow Mormon whom she had met at a church that catered to singles. Her parents and several brothers and sisters, including Pat, chose not to attend her wedding. Another brother, Hank, an accountant like their father, gave her away.

“No question about it--I knew it was difficult for Dad, and that made it all the more difficult for me,” Buchanan says. “But it was a good decision. I’m extremely comfortable with it. It was a real conversion in faith.” (The family members have now made up.)

Buchanan resigned as U.S. treasurer in 1983 and later moved back to California, where she launched a successful career as a political consultant, working in a number of state and local races as well as for Reagan’s reelection campaign.

She surprised many by becoming a candidate herself in 1990, challenging state Treasurer Thomas W. Hayes, a fellow Republican who had been appointed by then-Gov. George Deukmejian after the death of Jesse M. Unruh.

“I’d always wanted to be a candidate, and so I said: ‘Why not try it?’ ” Buchanan recalls. “I absolutely loved meeting people.” She ran a feisty campaign but ended up losing to Hayes by a margin of 54% to 46%.

A year after her race against Hayes, Buchanan again surprised many by managing the state Senate campaign of Dana Reed, an Orange County moderate who supported abortion rights and who went after crossover Democratic support.

“Dana was one of the few people who came to my (state treasurer) campaign early--in the first few weeks,” Buchanan explains. “And when he asked me to help him, it was a loyalty call.”

When Pat Buchanan asked his sister to direct his upstart campaign against Bush, family loyalty seemingly won out over party loyalty--and it startled those who did not think she would challenge a sitting President.

“She’s such a (GOP) loyalist. That’s why it surprised me,” says Bruce Herschensohn, a current Senate candidate whose 1986 Senate campaign Buchanan managed.

She retorts: “But Pat’s been a mentor of mine, and I’m very close to him. If he hadn’t asked me, I would have come back here anyhow.”

Among those hoping to see Bay Buchanan back in California--and soon--is John Cronin, a longtime backer of hers who is now the Southern California finance chairman for the Bush-Quayle reelection campaign.

“They’ve made their point, and now they have become counterproductive,” sniffs Cronin, a veteran Republican Party fund-raiser who, along with Herschensohn and Johns, served as co-chair of Bay Buchanan’s 1990 campaign.

But Buchanan says she is not ready to throw in the towel just yet.

“George Bush has walked away from everything, from every principle, every commitment, every promise that he made,” she declares. “The reason that our system is designed the way it is is to keep our elected officials honest to their philosophy and to their commitments. To suggest otherwise is to give them a free ride.

“If we succeed in doing nothing else, we’ll succeed in making candidates aware that when they make commitments to the people, they’d best do their darndest to keep those promises.”

It’s a question of loyalty.