With no clear front-runner in the Republican presidential race, the candidates scattered their fire in different directions as they discussed the Reagan legacy, Iran, and Israel at a debate last night in South Carolina.

Fred Thompson delivered the first fireworks of the 90-minute session when he lit into the winner of the Iowa caucuses, Michael Huckabee, for holding an array of positions at odds with prevailing Republican Party views. “He would be a Christian leader, but he would also bring about liberal economic policy, liberal foreign policy,” Mr. Thompson said. He faulted Mr. Huckabee for proposing to bring Guantanamo Bay prisoners to America, supporting educational vouchers, and vowing to ban smoking across America. “That’s not the model of the Reagan coalition. That’s the model of the Democratic Party,” Mr. Thompson said.

Mr. Huckabee said the sharp attack meant his campaign was making inroads against establishment conservatives. “The Air Force have a saying, ‘If you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target,'” he said with a chuckle. “I must be over the target.”

The former Arkansas governor conceded raising some taxes, though he said he cut others. “If Ronald Reagan were running tonight, there’d be ads running against him from the Club for Growth because he raised taxes,” Mr. Huckabee said. “I raised the hopes and expectations of the kids in my state who didn’t have a decent education,” he added later.

A question about an encounter between American warships and Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz led to some fiery answers. Mr. Huckabee said anyone who dares to mount an attack on American vessels should realized that “the next thing you see will be the gates of hell.”

“One more step and they would have been introduced to those virgins that they’re looking forward to seeing,” Mr. Thompson said, referring to the belief among some jihadists that they will be given 72 virgins if martyred. “Iran is clearly testing us.”

However, none of the candidates said American commanders made a mistake by not firing on the suspicious Iranian vessels. “For those of use who were not in the situation, to second guess is a little bit presumptuous,” Senator McCain of Arizona said.

After Rep. Ron Paul suggested ending foreign aid and military alliances, Mr. Huckabee said it would be dangerous for America to abandon Israel. “For us to give the world the impression that we would stand by if it were under attack and simply say, ‘It’s not our problem,’ would be recklessly irresponsible on our part, and if I were president, you can rest assured that we would not let an ally be annihilated by those enemies which surround it,” the former governor said.

Mr. Paul insisted that America was treating Israel as a “stepchild” by giving aid and then imposing conditions that limit the Jewish state’s ability to defend itself. He said they’d be “better off” and “a lot safer” without American involvement.

“The idea that Israel is a stepchild of the United States is totally absurd,” Mayor Giuliani replied. “The defense of Israel is of crucial importance to the United States of America. It goes much deeper than just tactical things.”

Mr. Giuliani also challenged Mr. McCain’s claim to have been the only Republican candidate who supported a major change in tactics in Iraq. “There are other people on this stage that also supported the surge,” the former mayor insisted.

“Not at the time,” Mr. McCain interjected. “I condemned the Rumsfeld strategy and called for the change in strategy. That’s the difference.”
Mr. Huckabee complained when he was asked about a 1998 newspaper ad he signed in which Southern Baptist ministers said a wife should submit “graciously to the servant leadership of her husband.”

“Everybody says religion is off limits but except we always can ask me the religious questions,” the former preacher said. He called the statement a “doctrinal quirk,” said it implied not inequality for women, and was purely part of his religious belief. “I don’t try to impose that as governor and I wouldn’t impose it as a president, but I certainly am going to practice it unashamedly whether I’m a president or whether I’m not a president.”

When Mitt Romney suggested that the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the country be “looked at person by person and given a specific time period” to get their affairs in order and depart America, Mr. Thompson said that was impractical. “You can’t look at them individually,” he said. The former senator from Tennessee said the best idea was to make it harder for illegal immigrants to get a job. “We would have enforcement by attrition.”

Mr. Giuliani, who has taken fire from Messrs. Thompson and Romney over allowing New York to become a “sanctuary city” for illegals, vigorously defended his policy of ignoring the immigration status of victims of and witnesses to serious crimes. “A person committing those crimes doesn’t look for green cards. It would have been irresponsible in the highest degree not to let them report it,” he said.

In a response to a question from the Fox News panel which sponsored the debate, Mr. Paul said he would prefer to have his supporters stop arguing that the American government had a hand in the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center towers. “It doesn’t do me any good, so if they care about me, they should,” he said.