Peg Luksik is pulling an Elizabeth Dole.

Forget the stage and microphone. She's darting among the aisles of the Connelly Center Cinema and performing her usual oratorical magic on a few dozen believers at the campus of Villanova University.

It is late afternoon on a Wednesday, and Luksik, who's running for governor of Pennsylvania for a third time, is captivating her audience.

A pixieish 43-year-old with hair the color of finely polished silver, Luksik discusses issues -- actually, she tells her listeners what is right and wrong -- as confidently as she might rattle off the names of her six children.

On Gov. Ridge's support for abortion rights: He "proclaims himself to be a Catholic and pro-abortion in clear violation of church teaching. Someone who tells you 'I believe in X and will do Y' tells you they can't be true to themselves. . . . They are saying, 'I will violate my own value system . . . if it is financially advantageous or politically expedient.' "

On government attempts to control development: "I'm not in favor of the state government creating growth areas and non-growth areas. It's your property, not the state's."

On health maintenance organizations: "Managed care is veterinary medicine. You're the cow."

Name an issue, Luksik has an opinion, and she is not shy about sharing it.

Perhaps that is why her transition from a political activist shaped by her Catholic faith to a statewide politician has gone so smoothly.

Born Marguerite A. McKenna in Huntsville, Ala., Luksik grew up near Norristown and attended Gwynedd Mercy Academy. After getting a bachelor's degree in special education from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, she spent five years in the classroom before she and her husband, James, began having children: Mark, Molly, Peter, Jeffrey, Andrew and Paul, who range in age from 16 to 4. Even before running for governor this year, Luksik was hardly a stay-at-home mom.

In 1983, she opened the door of her first Mom's House, a home for single mothers who want to attend high school or college. Demand was so great that she has since opened 11 more in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and Ohio. The program, funded by private contributions, has an annual budget of about $1.5 million. More than 2,500 mothers, ranging in age from 11 to 38, have gone through Mom's House, and the program boasts 450 college graduates. Luksik no longer runs the homes herself, but she remains the organization's chairman.

Luksik cut her first Pennsylvania political tooth in the late 1980s, when she rallied conservative activists to fight the state Department of Education over sex-education materials the agency had endorsed. That effort led to legislation that would have permitted students to receive sex education only if their parents signed them up for the program. The proposal never passed.

Luksik did not stop there. In 1990, upset by the GOP leadership's choice of vocal abortion-rights advocate and then-State Auditor General Barbara Hafer to run for governor, Luksik decided to seek the GOP nomination herself.

"She said she spoke for the women of Pennsylvania," Luksik said of Hafer. "I was 34 years old, I had four children. She didn't speak for me." Luksik's campaign staff consisted of a handful of friends and her husband. Her campaign headquarters was her Johnstown kitchen.

"The media said, 'Aren't you a protest candidate?' " Luksik recalled of the race. "I said, 'Yes, I am.' "

Thanks in part to gaffes by Hafer and the then-intense split between the GOP's antiabortion and abortion-rights wings, Luksik pulled off an astounding feat. She won 46 percent of the vote, losing to Hafer by just eight percentage points and actually beating her in a dozen counties. Luksik did not go away.

During Gov. Robert P. Casey's second term, she mobilized her forces again to oppose the controversial outcomes-based education (OBE) initiative, which set goals that students were supposed to achieve. Opponents such as Luksik were concerned about many aspects of the program, in particular that classroom teachers would be instructing students on social values, which she and others thought should be taught by parents. Ridge began phasing out OBE following his 1994 election, and, this week, new academic standards were approved.

In 1994, Luksik ran for governor a second time -- this time representing the Constitutional Party. Again, she confounded experts, winning 13 percent of the vote in a race in which the GOP's Ridge beat Democrat Mark Singel by 45 percent to 40 percent. Most had expected her to score only in the single digits. Over the last four years, Luksik has become well-known in national conservative circles -- in part because of a stint hosting a television show about education issues on the National Empowerment Television cable network. And, as leader of the state's Constitutional Party, she has traveled the country giving speeches and seminars on developing third-party candidacies.

Luksik is emphatic in her belief that the Republican and Democratic Parties have worked to perpetuate their power and not on behalf of average citizens.

As an example, she cites the state government's practice of printing new state road maps with the new governor's picture every time administrations change.

"Is it because the roads have changed?" she asked. "No, it's paid political advertising . . . to advance their careers."

As for her own career advancement, Luksik said she was in this year's governor's race to win. She has nearly matched and may exceed Democrat Ivan Itkin's fund-raising, but it will take a great infusion of cash for her to reach the $1 million goal she had set. Earlier this month, she was below $400,000. In contrast, Ridge has spent more than $5 million. Money notwithstanding, Luksik said she had been able to get out her message by relying on who she says are nearly 10,000 volunteers. She has dropped thousands of pieces of literature and has a Web site.

Would-be voters, she said, have been reacting positively to her message.

"It feels like Hafer," Luksik said, alluding to the race she nearly won. "It doesn't feel like four years ago."

Analysts do not see those rosy signs. Independent polls continue to show Luksik trailing Ridge by more than 40 points and Itkin by a few. Experts contend that Luksik could bite into the antiabortion vote that might have gone to Ridge, but they do not see her as a threat, even to Itkin, whose Democratic Party is in the doldrums. "Peg is better-organized this year and has raised more money, but I don't think she'll crack 13 percent," said Michael Coulter, a political science instructor who is following the race at Grove City College. "She's got a corps of loyal supporters, but she's not pulling from other elements of the Republican Party."

On the stump, Luksik continues to draw contrasts between herself and Ridge. (Itkin, she told the Villanova audience, is "nonexistent.")

Luksik criticizes Ridge on almost every issue, even those on which she does not totally disagree.

For instance, Ridge's "wholesale" signing of death warrants was "irresponsible," Luksik said, but she added: "I would not promise that I would never sign a death warrant. It would be a case-by-case basis."

On the subject of allowing parents to send their children to the public or private schools of their choice, Luksik said her idea of using tax credits was better than Ridge's voucher proposal, because the government would be involved less and the program would not be at the mercy of annual state budget negotiations. Almost all of Luksik's proposals and pledges strike a populist chord. She has promised to eliminate the state's inheritance tax, end auto-emissions testing, and return the state surplus to taxpayers.

On the issue of guns, Luksik is supported by the Gun Owners of America, which believes the National Rifle Association (NRA) has become too accommodating to gun-control advocates. The NRA has endorsed Ridge.

Luksik has kept a hectic schedule, appearing all over the state at everything from county fairs to kaffeeklatsches. She draws the most interest from abortion opponents (since she is the only antiabortion candidate) and people who passionately oppose government in general. A cornerstone of Luksik's stump speech, in fact, plays on that anti-government theme.

"If your rights come from a God who loves you . . . then your resources, your property are yours," Luksik said, adding: "It all comes down to who are you, who is God, and what is government?"