SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — President Bush, speaking to former first lady Nancy Reagan and several hundred guests at the opening of a pavilion at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum yesterday, attempted to grasp the mantle of the revered Republican icon.

The occasion for the trip west was the opening of the glass-walled pavilion housing an Air Force One Boeing 707 that carried President Reagan, Bush and five other presidents on more than 1,400 flights covering some 1.3 million miles.

"We're great fans of Nancy Reagan," Bush said. "We admire her strength. We admire the love she has for her husband, and we're grateful for her friendship."

He worked to embrace the legacy of Reagan, an icon of modern conservatism, even as his presidency is wobbling under multiple problems, including intensifying criticism from some on the right who say he has betrayed them.

Angry about the staggering cost of several Bush initiatives, including the Medicare prescription-drug plan and the recovery from Hurricane Katrina, some conservatives are pushing back. In Congress, some budget hawks have balked at the Katrina spending, insisting on cuts to offset it. But many of the proposed cuts will affect programs targeting the poor who suffered the most from the hurricane.

Some conservatives are outraged that Bush passed over several well-known and well-respected conservative jurists to nominate White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Miers, who spent decades as a high-powered corporate lawyer but whose constitutional views are a mystery, has been attacked by some on the right as an intellectual lightweight with questionable conservative credentials.

Robert Bork, Reagan's 1987 Supreme Court nominee who was rejected by the Senate, has called the Miers pick "a disaster on every level." Writing in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, he went further, saying "Bush has not governed as a conservative" and has proved to "be indifferent, if not actively hostile, to conservative values."

Beyond Bush's problems with his fracturing conservative base, a public spat with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also has marked Bush's two-day swing to California. The action-hero-turned-politician is miffed that Bush would not postpone his trip, which included a million-dollar fundraiser for the Republican National Committee.

Nearly two years after he rolled into office on the back of an unprecedented recall election, Schwarzenegger has staked his political career on an upcoming special election Nov. 8. Schwarzenegger is backing four initiatives — designed to strengthen his control over the budget and weaken public-employee unions — that he has said are critical to achieving his promise to remake California.

Officials in the governor's office said the White House was asked weeks ago to postpone Bush's trip to one of the nation's most-lucrative political fundraising markets to allow Schwarzenegger to raise cash without competition from the president. California Republican Party officials also hinted that the governor did not want to be too closely associated with Bush, who is increasingly unpopular in California.

A statewide poll last month by the Public Policy Institute of California gave Bush an approval rating of 38 percent, same as Schwarzenegger.

The spat became public Wednesday when Schwarzenegger, speaking in Anaheim, acknowledged that he wished Bush had postponed his trip. "We would have appreciated if he would have done his fundraising after the Nov. 8 election, because you know we need now all the money in the world," Schwarzenegger said. "We want to make sure that we win, that we can have our TV spots out there on television, which is very important."

Material from The Associated Press

is included in this report.