Huckabee v. Romney: Escalating War of Words

DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 21, 2007— -- They are a study in contrasts: ideological, cultural and religious.

The Republican race for Iowa has come down to former governors Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.

You'd think they were the only two candidates running. Huckabee refers to Romney as "my opponent."

Huckabee, a Baptist preacher raised in modest circumstances, attended Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark. Formerly obese, Huckabee lost 110 pounds while serving as governor of Arkansas for more than 10 years. His is a folksy, populist approach, with deeply held conservative social views, and a campaign run, until recently, on a shoestring budget.

Willard "Mitt" Romney is the son of former Michigan governor and former president of American Motors, George Romney. Mitt graduated valedictorian of Brigham Young University after finishing a two-year Mormon mission in France. He completed a joint JD/MBA program, coordinated between Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.

Dashing and lean, Romney earned millions as the CEO of Bain & Company, and approaches politics like a businessman. His views on some social issues have shifted as he transitioned from governor of Massachusetts to a free-spending GOP presidential candidate.

All this week, Romney accused Huckabee of being weak on crime, for granting prisoners more pardons and commutations than the previous three Arkansas governors combined — an issue he also uses against his rival in a TV ad to shore up support among women voters in Iowa, who prefer Huckabee by almost 20 points.

"When it comes to deciding who's gonna be the toughest, as it deals with criminals," Romney said Thursday in Fort Dodge, Iowa, "there's no question, but that my record suggests that my giving out no pardons is a heck of a lot better than giving out 1,033 pardons."

However, that charge is false; the 1,033 number is not just pardons — it's a total of both Huckabee's pardons and commutations.

Huckabee's response is to use the issue to paint Romney as callow and calculating, giving no pardons or commutations because he worried it might hurt him politically.

"The American people want a president who makes his decisions based on what's good for the people he's served, not what's good for his own political future," Huckabee said in Dike, Iowa.

One key difference that Huckabee has with Romney is faith. Huckabee has invoked Jesus' name in a Christmas TV ad, and called himself a "Christian leader" in another. The side of his campaign bus reads: "Mike Huckabee. Faith. Family. Freedom."

An ABC News poll from this week indicates that Huckabee's current lead here comes from the significant minority of voters — 2 out of 10 — who say they are unlikely to vote for a Mormon.

When asked whether it bothered him that opposition to a Mormon candidate bolstered his support, Huckabee responded, "You know, it's not something that I agree with. But I agree with the final outcome."

"There will always be people who don't understand my faith terribly well," Romney said, when asked about the wedge issue his religion has become. "And people who will make a decision on the basis of familiarity with a faith."

And while the former Arkansas governor downplays the religious aspect of their fight, he often discusses the class divide between himself and Romney, a multimillionaire child of privilege.

"More Americans grew up like I did than grew up in a world where they were born on third base, got up and thought they hit a triple," he told ABC News. He said that allows voters to identify with him.