The day's events underscore the complicated role that race is playing in the primary here, where both candidates are trying to appeal to minorities as well as moderate white voters. Despite the candidates' efforts to avoid or downplay them, racial controversies continue to dog Bush and McCain in voter forums and news conferences.

"If anybody doesn't believe that these interrogators and these prison guards who tortured me and my friends were not cruel and sadistic people that deserve the appellation gook. . . . There's no appellation that could be bad enough. I'm referring to our prison guards," he said. "I will continue to refer to them probably in language that might offend some people here . . . I hated the gooks and will continue to hate them as long as I live."

This afternoon, People for the American Way asked McCain to fire Richard Quinn, a top adviser here, who edits a controversial conservative magazine called the Southern Partisan. Reporters first asked McCain about Quinn earlier this month, and the senator defended him, saying he did not consider Quinn a racist and was unaware of the racist material the magazine has published.

It turns out, according to research by the group, Quinn has contributed to the magazine's body of racist work over a 20-year period. In one article, he called Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" and a "bad egg." In another, Quinn said of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke: "What better way to reject politics as usual than to elect a maverick like David Duke" And in a 1993 article arguing against a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, he wrote that King was a man "whose role in history was to lead his people into a perpetual dependence on the welfare state, a terrible bondage of body and soul."

Ralph Neas, head of People for the American Way, wrote McCain today that Quinn "has repeatedly used his column to attack heroes of the struggle for equality. At the same time, he has discounted the evils of slavery by suggesting that it was not as bad as it has been portrayed and that slaves were better off in slavery than out of it."

Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer called Quinn's writings "offensive," adding that McCain "was very critical of one of Bush's supporters who said something he believed was out of line. Now it will be interesting to see how he reacts now that it is one of his supporters who has said something that is very out of line."

But McCain sloughed off the group's criticism, saying of Quinn: "This is a man who worked for Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond and other fine people. This is an outfit I almost never agreed with and so this is another case where we have a disagreement." McCain said that he has never read anything written by Quinn.

The Arizona senator campaigned today in Greenville, Spartanburg and Columbia in the heart of what is considered conservative territory that Bush is likely to carry in Saturday's primary. But McCain was accompanied by social conservative activist Gary Bauer, the former GOP presidential candidate who endorsed McCain on Wednesday and whose conservative credentials McCain hopes will buttress his cause among Christian conservatives.

As he did at the end of his campaign in New Hampshire, McCain dropped town hall meetings in favor of speeches at rallies that are designed to energize supporters and get them to the polls. He attracted respectable but not especially large or enthusiastic crowds. But the candidate sounded increasingly optimistic as he campaigned today. "We can lose here and still go on," he told the Spartanburg rally. "But I'll tell you what. If we win here, I don't really see how we can be stopped."

Bush barnstormed through South Carolina today, telling voters he was enthusiastic about his chances in the primary here. "I like what I feel here in South Carolina," Bush said this afternoon at a beach and golf resort in Litchfield.

But Bush wasn't so ebullient earlier at a news conference at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Florence, when he was asked again about his visit to Bob Jones University and the Confederate battle flag. "Do not judge my heart based on issues that this state ought to resolve," he said.

Asked to respond to criticism by rival Alan Keyes of Bush's decision to go to Bob Jones and not challenge its policies, Bush said he spoke out against the dating policy when he was asked at a news conference afterward. "I went with a message that our conservative philosophy is a compassionate philosophy. And I laid out what my vision for America is . . . I gave the right speech," he added.

Some of the information released by People for the American Way was culled by Ed Sebesta, a Dallas-area engineer who said he researches hate groups. Sebesta also provided to the Washington Post letters that he says prove Bush's has a different position on the Confederate flag than he has led people to believe.

One document shows that Bush was listed as a supporter of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, which claims to be the keeper of "the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of Confederate artifacts" and champions the heritage of the flag.

Fleischer said that letter in support of the museum was one of thousands that the governor sends to various groups every year. For instance, Fleischer said, Bush sent 43 letters in support of African American social and cultural groups in 1998.

Staff writer Ben White in Washington contributed to this report.

Buchanan called that an "unjustified smear'' and dismissed Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, as an "inconsequential figure in American politics today.''

"We have not sought his endorsement. We do not seek his endorsement and if he gives us his endorsement, we do not want it,'' Buchanan said.

In Denver Friday for a speech, Ventura, a former Navy SEAL, said Buchanan had no right to ask why he did not stay and fight.

"To my best knowledge, he never served his country,'' Ventura said. "If he wants to talk about fighting ... has he ever stood a post, put his life in another man's hands? How dare he talk to me about fighting in any way, shape, or form.''

Last Saturday, national committee members ousted Chairman Jack Gargan, a Ventura ally, and replaced him with Pat Choate, who was Perot's 1996 running mate.

Choate this week informed the party's executive committee of plans to raise more money and to convene a national issues meeting in an effort to rebuild the Reform Party's image after the raucous, nationally televised meeting last weekend.

A federal judge in Lynchburg, Va., on Friday ordered Gargan to give the court control of $2.5 million in Federal Election Commission funds until arguments about who controls the party and its money can be resolved.

U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon, who has jurisdiction because the money disappeared from a bank in Martinsville, said it is reasonable to believe that Gargan and former party treasurer Ronn Young were illegally holding the funds, and that Choate, would likely prevail as the head of the Reform Party. "They seem to be in the catbird's seat right now,'' Moon said.

Moon's order blocked Gargan from attempting to return the $2.5 million to the FEC, saying money turned over to a government agency would be tough to get back in a timely fashion.

Moon said he will decide who should control the FEC funds in March, when hearings also are set in Lynchburg to decide who represents the party. The hearings are slated for March 22-24.

The Minnesota Reform Party is likely to vote March 4 to break from the national party. But Buchanan said he would return and fight to get on the ballot as the Reform Party presidential candidate in the state.

"We cannot understand the timing of the governor's decision to pull out at this point,'' Buchanan said. "I think the governor's voluntarily taken himself out as a player.''

As for Ventura's assertion that the Reform Party is dysfunctional, Buchanan said, "Well, it's been functioning pretty well since Monday.''

They voiced their opinions over the weekend, at an anti-immigration rally led by former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke that underscored the tension underlying the rapid, unprecedented influx of Hispanic immigrants into North Carolina

"It's truly an American tragedy, what's happening in Siler City, and it's symbolic of what's happening to America,'' Duke said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Some, like Duke and the 100 or so people who attended Saturday's rally, say the burgeoning Hispanic population is creating a burden on the local economy. Many disagree.