Huckabee Calls Romney Dishonest, Obama Says Criticism May Take Toll

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The New York Sun

DES MOINES — Michael Huckabee called Mitt Romney a dishonest politician who couldn’t be trusted with the presidency, turning up the heat today in a close-and-getting-closer Republican race in Iowa.

As six candidates took their closing messages to morning talk shows, Senator Obama acknowledged that the criticism directed at him might be taking a toll.

“That may have some effect but ultimately I’m putting my faith in the people of Iowa that they want something better,” Mr. Obama said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Headed into the final days of the closest caucuses in a lifetime, public and private polls showed that Mr. Obama, Senator Clinton and a former North Carolina senator, John Edwards, were locked in a three-way tie for the lead. A new poll of the Republican race suggested that Mr. Huckabee’s surprise surge may have stalled — his lead over Mr. Romney evaporated.

Mr. Huckabee said he may have been hurt by Romney ads and mailings criticizing his record as governor of Arkansas. Lacking Mr. Romney’s resources, Mr. Huckabee used an appearance on the NBC show to accuse Mr. Romney of distorting his own public record.

“If you aren’t being honest in obtaining the job, can we trust you if you get the job?” Mr. Huckabee asked.

He accused Mr. Romney of running “a very desperate and, frankly, distorted” campaign against himself and rival Senator McCain.

Calling the former Vietnam POW a hero, Mr. Huckabee said, “I felt like when Mitt Romney went after the integrity of John McCain, he stepped over the line.”

Mr. Romney is fighting on two fronts, hoping to defeat Mr. Huckabee in Iowa and Mr. McCain in New Hampshire to vault himself to the nomination.

Mr. McCain said on ABC’s “This Week” that Mr. Romney’s criticism of him and Mr. Huckabee “shows they’re worried.”

But Mr. McCain, asked whether Mr. Romney was a “phony,” declined to use the word.

“I think he’s a person who changed his positions on many issues,” Mr. McCain said.

A Mason-Dixon poll showed Mr. Romney at 27% and Mr. Huckabee at 23% in Iowa, both trailed by Mr. McCain, Fred Thompson, Mayor Giuliani, and Rep. Ron Paul. The polls had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. On the Democratic side, the poll showed Mr. Edwards, Mrs. Clinton, and Mr. Obama all within a percentage point of each other.

Mrs. Clinton told ABC that her husband, President Clinton, would take on the same responsibilities as traditional presidential spouses if she won the election.

“He will not have a formal, official role, but just as presidents rely on wives, husbands, fathers, friends of long years, he will be my close confidante and adviser as I was with him,” she said on “This Week.”

The idea of her husband participating in National Security Council meetings “wouldn’t be appropriate,” she added.

Laughing, Mr. Edwards said he couldn’t imagine Mr. Clinton staying out of the mix.

“I think it’s a complete fantasy,” he said on CBS. “If you watch him out on the campaign trail, he spends an awful lot of time talking about his views and not Senator Clinton’s.”

In the GOP race, Mr. Huckabee’s surge to the top tier has forced him to answer questions about his record in Arkansas, a series of gaffes on the campaign trail and the role his faith — he’s an ordained Baptist minister — plays in his public life.

“The key issue to real faith is it can never be forced on any one,” Mr. Huckabee said, adding that he would have no problem appointing atheists to government posts.

Judge him by his record in Arkansas, he said: “I never proposed a bill that would remove the capitol dome and replace it with a steeple.”

Mr. Huckabee, a long-time opponent of legalized abortion, said he does not believe that women should be punished for undergoing the procedure, but that doctors might need to face sanctions when they “take money to take life.”

Mr. Thompson criticized Mr. Huckabee’s missteps in discussing the turmoil in Pakistan after the assassination of a former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

“His ideas now are not consistent with someone who understands the nature of the world that we live in and the challenges that we face,” Mr. Thompson said on “Fox News Sunday.”


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