DETROIT -- The vaunted Engler effect went flat.

But Texas Gov. George W. Bush professed no disenchantment Tuesday night with his Michigan counterpart, who had spared no effort to deliver Republican votes but fell short in the state's presidential primary.

"John's a friend of mine, but if I had to do it over again, you bet I'd stand by my friend," Bush said in Kansas City, Mo., during a stopover where he began to take the measure of his Michigan defeat.

Engler had stuck to Bush like glue in a primary campaign that was as bitter as it was short, describing the state as the Texas governor's firewall against John McCain. Bush's loss was the most significant yet for a GOP establishment laying in wait to help Bush and hurt McCain from state to state.

"I may give the McCain organization a lot of credit on this one and I may have to take a lot of the blame," Engler said on MSNBC. In not countering McCain's appeal to Democrats, "I might have made a big strategic error."

Exit polls indicated the three-term Michigan governor -- a man with passionate enemies as well as friends -- may have hurt Bush more than helped him.

Only about 15 percent of voters said Engler influenced their vote "a great deal," but those voters went for McCain, nearly 3-to-1. About half of voters said Engler's endorsement of Bush didn't matter at all.

A day that began with Bush and Engler gathering over waffles and radio call-in shows at Jimi's Restaurant in a Detroit suburb stretched into a long evening of travel west for the Texas governor, punctuated by a Kansas City, Mo., airport rally where he appeared both testy and philosophical.

Absorbing the news that he was losing the primaries both in Michigan and in Arizona, McCain's home state, Bush pointedly said of Michigan: "I'm pleased with the Republican vote," even if it was overtaken with McCain's coalition of Republicans, Democrats and independents.

"I think the interesting thing is I won overwhelmingly among Republicans and like-minded independents," he said.

And without identifying his rival, Bush slammed the "politics of division," referring to calls made to Michigan Catholics by the McCain campaign noting Bush, while campaigning in South Carolina, had visited a school with a history of criticizing Catholicism.

"I reject politics of those who try to pit one group of Americans against another -- of those who try to divide us based upon our race or based upon our faith," Bush said.

"We're better people than that and we need leaders who understand how to unite Americans. And to those Washington politicians who try to divide us into boxes and pit us against each other, I say shame on you."

He said: "Let me make it crystal clear: I reject bigotry, I reject prejudice; I repudiate anti-Catholicism and racism."

Bush supporters also faced accusations of exploiting religious divisions, as Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson spread the message in recorded phone calls that a McCain adviser -- who once criticized some religious right leaders as bigots -- was a "vicious bigot" himself.

The Bush campaign said it had nothing to do with Robertson's calls; Engler said he was not happy the calls were made.

Bush flew on to California to campaign for that state's huge primary and to meet Wednesday with Hispanic voters.