Huckabee Prays for Strength to Get Through Caucuses

DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 30, 2007 — -- Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee attended services at Cornerstone Family Church this morning, where the former Baptist minister heard a sermon about the importance of attending the caucuses on Thursday.

"Ninety-five percent have never participated in a caucus," Pastor Dan Berry told the worshippers. "I want to challenge you to go. It is not a hard thing."

Huckabee needs those praying in these pews to soon be canvassing at caucuses. Underfunded and understaffed, Huckabee needs his fellow evangelicals -- who can comprise up to 40 percent of caucus goers -- to keep the faith and vote for him, even as he withstands a barrage of attacks.

After services, Huckabee told ABC News he prayed for "strength for the week" (and yes, ABC News double-checked with his campaign and the strength he was seeking God's help for was for the week, and not the "weak").

For weeks now, Huckabee's chief rival here, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, has been criticizing Huckabee on the stump and in TV ads on subjects ranging from taxes to immigration and foreign policy. According to some polls, the charges have had an impact and have eroded his lead in Iowa.

Having previously pledged to wage a positive campaign, Huckabee this weekend began lashing back at the harsh accusations Romney has been waging against his record and that of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., against whom Romney is running negative ads in New Hampshire. After weeks of turning the other cheek, Huckabee all but called Romney a liar.

"He's dishonest toward me; he's dishonest toward John McCain," Huckabee said in Indianola, Iowa. "It's one thing to attack us on our record, but it's another thing to make it up. ... Maybe you have another word for it, but in Arkansas we have only one word for it. We kept it kind of simple. We call it dishonest."

Huckabee said Romney was "making up things not about just our records but making up things about his own in terms of things he saw, marches with Martin Luther King ... endorsements from the NRA that never happened."

He said the race was coming down to "the honesty and integrity with which we're approaching it."

But Huckabee has also been hurt by his own hand with foreign policy blunders, most recently seeming to believe, for instance, that Pakistan was still under martial law, and inaccurately claiming that 660 Pakistanis last year came into the U.S. illegally, when that number was actually over a four-year period.

This morning in Des Moines, Huckabee's fellow church-goers did not seem to care about the gaffes or the attacks.

"I like where he stands morally and socially," said Sam Mahlstadt. "A lot of Republicans don't stand where I wish they would stand socially."

Added church-goer Shanna Raygor, "I'm a born-again Christian, and I believe born-again Christians have good rights and good beliefs and he's a good candidate."

In Columbus Junction, Iowa, this afternoon, Romney defended the millions he's spending in negative ads against the records of Huckabee here and McCain in New Hampshire. Romney protested the way his rivals were assailing his character in response.

"I think it's entirely appropriate in the political process to point out differences on important issues," Romney told ABC News' Matt Stuart. "But I don't think you have to make it a personal attack. And when that happens, I think it's very disappointing and the public responds accordingly."

In an interesting dynamic, competitors McCain and Huckabee have taken to praising one another and defending each other from Romney's attacks. McCain wants Huckabee to beat Romney in Iowa on Jan. 3, while Huckabee wants McCain to beat Romney in the Granite State on Jan. 8. As the old saying goes, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Matt Stuart with the Romney campaign, and Kevin Chupka with the Huckabee campaign contributed to this report.