SIMI VALLEY, Calif., May 3 - The 10 declared Republican presidential candidates met together for the first time here Thursday night in what amounted to a tentative but occasionally vibrant competition to define the party's ideology and agenda in a post-Bush era.



The leading candidates offered sharply contrasting views of Mr. Bush himself. But they also differed on an array of social issues - abortion, stem cell research, immigration and evolution - in a debate that highlighted a party in flux as it struggles to figure out how to retain the White House for a third consecutive term.



Senator John McCain of Arizona in particular signaled that a McCain presidency would rectify what he described as mistakes by Mr. Bush in his handling of the war in Iraq and in overseeing government spending, while Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, said Mr. Bush acted too slowly in dismissing Donald H. Rumsfeld as secretary of defense.



"I would not have mismanaged the war," Mr. McCain said. "And I would have vetoed spending bill after spending bill after pork-barrel project after pork-barrel project, in the tradition of President Reagan."



By contrast, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, offered a dramatic embrace of Mr. Bush before a Republican audience, invoking Mr. Bush's reaction to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 as he firmly tied himself to Mr. Bush's presidency.



"I believe we had a president who made the right decision at the right time on Sept. 20, 2001, to put us on offense against terrorists," Mr. Giuliani said. "I think history will remember him for that. And I think we as Republicans should remind people of that."



Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, spoke of Mr. Bush's "character, his passion, his love for his country."



More than anything, the debate offered Republicans voters, and the nation, a chance to see the cast of candidates side by side for the first time. The debate was at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, with Nancy Reagan sitting in the audience.



There were revealing moments that went past the well-rehearsed lines by all the candidates. Three of the candidates - Mr. Huckabee, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado - raised their hands to signal that they did not believe in evolution.



Mr. McCain, looking at Mrs. Reagan in the audience, split from most of his rivals in stating unequivocally that he would support the use of federal funding to expand stem cell research.



Mr. Giuliani was the only other candidate to offer limited support for funded research, if, he added, "We're not creating life in order to destroy it, as long as we're not having human cloning, and we limit it to that."



Three of the better-known candidates - Mr. Romney, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. McCain, saying he was speaking with the benefit of hindsight - said Congress made a mistake in interceding in the legal question of whether to maintain life support for Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman.



Several Republicans said they believed the intervention by a Republican Congress in that case helped the party lose control of both Houses last years.



Both Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani struggled when pressed on their views on abortion.



Mr. Giuliani, who has said he supports abortion rights, gave conflicting signals on the issue. He joined the other nine in saying he would not be upset if the Supreme Court voted to overturn the decision that legalized abortion. But later he endorsed a woman's right to make a decision on whether to have an abortion.



"It would be O.K. to repeal," Mr. Giuliani said. "Or it would be O.K. also if a strict constructionist judge viewed it as a precedent, and I think a judge has to make that decision."



Similarly, he said that, while he supported public financing of abortion for poor women in New York, in other states, "people can come to a different decision."



Mr. Romney sought to explain his shift on the issue from being in favor of abortion rights, when he was running for office in Massachusetts, to running as a strong opponent now.



"I've always been personally pro-life, but for me there was a great question about whether or not government should intrude in that decision," Mr. Romney said. It was the debate over cloning in his state that pressed him to change his mind, he said.



"I said, 'Look, we have gone too far; it's a brave new world mentality that Roe v. Wade has given us,' and I changed my mind. I took the same course that Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush and Henry Hyde took. And I said I was wrong and changed my mind and said I'm pro-life. And I'm proud of that and I won't apologize to anybody for becoming pro-life."



The 90-minute debate was sponsored by MSNBC and Politico.com, employing a mixture of questions from two moderators - Chris Matthews of MSNBC and John Harris of Politico.Com - with questions over the Internet from viewers.



On an issue of obviously great interest, the candidates raced to endorse various forms of tax cuts. Mr. McCain called for the repeal of the alternativeminimum tax, saying it was hurting middle-class families, while Mr. Giuliani called for adjusting that tax - presumably by exempting more middle-class families - while repealing the estate tax. Mr. Romney called for repealing the capital gains tax on middle-class families.Mr. Tancredo, who has built his campaign around a strong call for tough measures against illegalimmigration, criticized his opponents - he did not mention any by name, though his remarks appeared directed at Mr. Giuliani and Mr. McCain - for what he said was equivocation on the issue.



"No more platitudes," he said. "No more obfuscating with using words like, 'Well, I am not for amnesty but I'm for letting them stay.' That kind of stuff has got to be taken away from the political debate, as far as I'm concerned, so people can understand exactly who is where on this incredibly important issue."



When Mr. Matthews asked if any of the candidates wished to take Mr. Tancredo up on his challenge, only Mr. McCain responded. "One thing we would all agree on: the status quo is not acceptable," he said. "We have to secure our borders, but we also need a temporary worker program, and we have to dispose of the issue of 12 million people who are in this country illegally."



Throughout the proceedings, the moderators of the debate pushed candidates for answers, often cutting their statements short to press for more specifics.



The Iraq war, terrorism, abortion and health care weighed heavy during the debate, with the more standard lines of inquiry frequently broken up by questions submitted by viewers.



At several points, it seemed as if the candidates were on a television game show, blurting out 30-second answers on a whirlwind of disparate issues.



What do you dislike most about America? Do you have a plan to solve the shortage of organs donated for transplant? Have you watched Al Gore's documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth?" Do you trust the mainstream media?



Mr. McCain was asked whether he would be comfortable with Mr. Tancredo as director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.



"In a word: no," Mr. McCain said with a smile.



But barely taking a breath, he addressed a previous question about how vigorously the United States should pursue Osama bin laden, declaring: "I'll follow him to the gates of hell."



The other candidates in the debate were former Gov. Jim Gilmore of Virginia, former Representative Duncan Hunter of California, Representative Ron Paul of Texas and former Gov. Tommy G. Thompson of Wisconsin.



Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting from Simi Valley, and Jeff Zeleny from Washington.
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