Romney Claws Back in Iowa Polls
Huckabee Plans TV Ads
To Attack His Chief Rival;

By LAURA MECKLER
December 31, 2007

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Mike Huckabee's surge in Iowa showed signs of retreat as three new polls found rival Mitt Romney, who has attacked Mr. Huckabee by land and by air, climbing back. In response, the former Arkansas governor called Mr. Romney dishonest and prepared to begin airing his first TV ad directly attacking him starting today.


The three-way Democratic race was nearly as tense. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama accused former Sen. John Edwards of hypocrisy for railing against special interests and then allowing an independent, labor-funded group to run TV ads supporting his bid. And Mr. Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton continued their feud over who is better prepared to handle foreign policy.

On the Republican side, a Mason-Dixon poll in Iowa found Mr. Romney with 27% and Mr. Huckabee with 23%; other new surveys had Mr. Romney on top or the race at a statistical tie, and Romney aides said they were more concerned about Arizona Sen. John McCain in New Hampshire than Mr. Huckabee in Iowa.

For the Democrats, the new polls all found the race among the top three contenders tight.

Mr. Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, has been hammering Mr. Huckabee in a series of TV ads questioning his record on immigration, crime and foreign policy. Over the weekend, the Huckabee campaign concluded that it had to answer with an aggressive TV ad of its own.

"We are going to sharpen our message very quickly and we are going to respond," said a senior Huckabee adviser.

An ad to begin airing today will accuse Mr. Romney of distorting Mr. Huckabee's record in order to hide his own record on issues including abortion and fee increases while he was governor. "We're gonna come after him on his record."

The aggressive ad strategy carries risk in a state where voters say they don't like negative campaigning. For days, Mr. Huckabee has been promising to run a positive campaign.

Asked what he thought about a Huckabee TV-ad attack, Rob Moran, 35 years old, said: "He'd be at this point a little hypocritical to do that." Still, Mr. Moran allowed that the Romney TV ads had made an impression on him and said he came to hear Mr. Huckabee speak Saturday in Indianola to see how he would respond.

Until now, Mr. Huckabee has delivered his defense on the stump and in interviews, including one yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press," where Mr. Huckabee called Mr. Romney's campaign "very desperate and frankly...dishonest."

"If you aren't being honest in obtaining a job, can we trust you to be honest if you get the job?" he said.

Romney spokesman Kevin Madden replied: "Mike Huckabee's lashing out with personal attacks against Gov. Romney that have no merit or substance is quite unfortunate. Campaigns should be about the issues."

Mr. Romney, fighting a two-pronged battle, is running ads in Iowa against Mr. Huckabee and in New Hampshire against Sen. McCain, who has gained in polling there and is now a close second.

On Sunday, Mr. Romney noted Mr. McCain's many years of service in Washington and said an outsider would be better able to enact change.

"I don't think you change Washington from the inside," he told reporters.

Mr. Huckabee yesterday also was forced to defend his own misstatement that Pakistanis represent the majority of non-Latin American foreigners trying to enter the country illegally. And he was quizzed on his immigration policy.

In 2005, he said that the U.S. economy "would collapse" without illegal immigrants, but now proposes forcing all 12 million of them to leave the country within 120 days.

"I don't think it would collapse the American economy if people went back and did their process of becoming legal. And all of them aren't going to go back on the same day," he said yesterday on NBC.

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