OS ANGELES - John McCain's upstart candidacy hit an embarrassing snag yesterday when a key supporter, conservative activist Gary Bauer, urged him to apologize to fundamentalist Christian leaders for his recent harsh words.
''I must in the strongest possible terms repudiate Senator McCain's unwarranted, ill-advised, and divisive attacks on certain religious leaders,'' Bauer said in a statement. ''Senator McCain must not allow his personal differences with any individual to cloud his judgment.''
On Monday, McCain denounced Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell in Virginia for trying to hijack the Republican Party. In his stinging speech, McCain called the Christian leaders ''agents of intolerance.''
''I am not backing away from the speech,'' McCain said yesterday, on his way to a town hall meeting with students at the University of Southern California. During that event, McCain called his words ''carefully crafted and carefully thought out.''
As the Republican primary season enters the critical period before 13 states hold their contests on Tuesday, the race has devolved into a religious battle of sorts, with Governor George W. Bush of Texas courting fundamentalist Christians, as he did in South Carolina, while McCain accuses him of insensitivity to Catholics.
Bauer, who dropped his own bid for president after the New Hampshire primary, has played a critical role in the McCain campaign. Bauer has been talking to antiabortion activists and other social conservatives on McCain's behalf in South Carolina, Michigan, and other states, saying that he trusts McCain to fight abortion and to uphold family values and so should Republican voters.
But when McCain referred to Robertson and Falwell as ''evil'' during a conversation with reporters on his bus, Bauer issued his strong statement. He also took issue with McCain's comparison of Robertson and Falwell with the Rev. Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan.
In his speech Monday, McCain said, ''Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left or Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell on the right.''
In his statement yesterday, Bauer said, ''Such rhetoric serves only to divide the party and place into the hands of the liberal elite material to falsely depict Christian conservatives as intolerant extremists.''
At the time of the speech, Bauer was still defending McCain. ''If this were an attack on Christian conservative voters, I wouldn't be here,'' he said.
While McCain defended his assault on Robertson and Falwell, he said his remark calling them evil was ''a lighthearted attempt at humor.'' The Arizona senator frequently jokes using ''Star Wars'' metaphors, calling himself Luke Skywalker battling to escape the death star and fighting the forces of evil.
Yesterday, he said he got carried away.
''If anyone was offended by it, I regret it,'' McCain said. ''I did not say or mean that they are evil,'' he continued. ''I'm saying they're bad for our party.''
McCain has frequently cast his campaign as a fight for the GOP and a fight to take back the White House with a ''McCain majority'' that includes Republicans, Democrats, independents, libertarians, and even vegetarians. Simply appealing to Republicans and the Christian right, McCain says, is not a winning formula, because Republicans do not make up a majority of Americans.
''This is about the heart and soul and direction of the Republican Party,'' McCain said. ''If you're going to let Pat Robertson direct the party, we're heading for permanent minority status.''
McCain also said he did not interpret Bauer's criticism to include his speech in Virginia, only his comments about Robertson and Falwell being evil.
