Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Conservative activist Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, reversed his call for House Speaker Dennis Hastert to resign over the Mark Foley sex scandal after getting a personal call today from Hastert.

Hastert and the Bush administration are trying to shore up support among Christian voters, even as the scandal grew today. The top aide to Representative Tom Reynolds, chairman of the House Republican campaign organization, resigned over allegations he tried to suppress the lurid e-mails that forced Foley's ouster Sept. 29. The aide, Kirk Fordham, told the Associated Press that he alerted Hastert's office two years ago of concerns about Foley's conduct.

Weyrich said Hastert called him and insisted that he didn't receive clear warnings from other leaders or aides about Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a teenage former congressional page.

``I've known Dennis Hastert for years, and he's one of the more honest people I know,'' Weyrich said in an interview. ``I can take his word, and as a result I told him I'd back him on it.''

White House officials also have been in contact with religious groups, urging them to demonstrate restraint in their statements about the Foley situation to avoid alienating some of the party's most dependable voters.

Religious Groups

Administration officials are reminding religious groups in telephone conversations that the mid-term elections are only about five weeks away and the party can't afford to exacerbate existing tensions over the Foley case.

Hastert received a boost when Representative Mike Pence of Indiana and Representative Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania released a joint statement expressing support for him. Pence and Pitts are leaders of the Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 100 self-described conservative House Republicans.

``Regardless of our reservations about how this matter was handled administratively, we believe Speaker Hastert is a man of integrity who has led our conference honorably and effectively throughout the past eight years,'' the two wrote. ``Speaker Dennis Hastert should not resign.''

Critics

Still, Hastert is not without critics among conservatives.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri today said he would have handled things differently than Hastert did if he had known of Foley's conduct.

``I think I could have given some good advice here, which is you have to be curious,'' Blunt said in remarks reported by AP and confirmed by his office. ``You have to ask all the questions you can think of. You absolutely can't decide not to look into activities because on individual's parents don't want you to.''

Human Events, a conservative national weekly, will call on House Republicans to elect new leaders in an edition that goes to press tomorrow, said Tom Winter, the editor-in-chief.

``We think the Republicans need new leaders, and I don't think Hastert will be there much longer,'' Winter said. ``I think he has to do this for the team, he has to step down.''

The pro-Republican editorial page of the Washington Times called on Hastert to step aside this week.

The matter is threatening Hastert's hold on power after almost eight years in the House's top job. Senior Republicans are considering the possibility of Hastert's keeping his job only until the end of the year while announcing he won't seek re- election to the leadership position, the New York Times reported today.

Survival

If Hastert can regain support of the party's conservative base quickly, he may survive with his job intact, said Vin Weber, a Republican Party strategist and former representative. Still, there remains the possibility of further revelations about contacts with pages, he said. Democrats in close House races are beginning to run TV ads attacking their Republican opponents over the scandal, and that could cause Hastert's support in the House to fall, he said.

``We're now about to go into the next phase, which is the Democrats taking very aggressive advantage of it,'' said Weber, who is a lobbyist at Clark and Weinstock in Washington.

Hastert's office said over the weekend that one of his top aides was told by the office of Representative Rodney Alexander, a Louisiana Republican, about ``overly friendly'' e-mails that Foley sent to one of Alexander's pages. The matter has sparked finger-pointing among Republican leaders, with Reynolds insisting he told the speaker about the exchanges with Alexander's page last spring.

Doesn't Remember

Hastert has said he doesn't remember the conversation.

House Majority Leader John Boehner said yesterday that he spoke to Hastert about Foley's ``overly friendly'' e-mails and considered it Hastert's ``responsibility.''

Hastert insists that neither he nor his staff knew about other more explicit instant text messages that Foley sent to former pages in other earlier exchanges.

Weyrich said it was clear in his conversation with Hastert that there is a rift now between the speaker and Boehner. Hastert insisted that Boehner never spoke to him about concerns about Foley.

``He said that Boehner absolutely did not talk to him,'' Weyrich said.

``He was irritated, and I don't blame him,'' he said of Hastert's reaction to Boehner's remarks yesterday. ``I think Boehner gratuitously went out of his way to shaft the speaker.''

A spokesman for Boehner said that Boehner has made clear he stands by the speaker, and said that ``they continue to communicate.''

``Mr. Boehner supports the speaker and the speaker enjoys the support of the conference,'' said spokesman Kevin Madden.

Fordham, who served as Foley's chief-of-staff before filling the same job for Reynolds, resigned after ABC News said he tried to suppress ABC's reporting of the lewd messages in exchange for an exclusive on Foley's resignation. Foley resigned his congressional seat Sept. 29 after ABC confronted him with the communications with former House pages.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net; Jay Newton-Small in Washington at jnewtonsmall@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 4, 2006 17:13 EDT