JOHNSTON, Iowa (AFP) — Surging White House hopeful Mike Huckabee Wednesday escaped without a scratch from a docile last Republican debate before voters start weighing in on the 2008 presidential race.
Three weeks before the Iowa caucuses kick-start the nominating process, rivals failed to wound the ordained Baptist pastor in a sedate encounter which contrasted with an increasingly acrimonious Republican race.
"I was kind of anticipating there would be blood on the floor, most of it mine, and fortunately, I came out without a Band-Aid," Huckabee later told CNN.
The former Arkansas governor who shares a hometown, Hope, with Bill Clinton, went into the debate embroiled in a new row over rival Mitt Romney's Mormonism, betraying a nasty undertone to the Republican struggle.
He was quoted in a forthcoming New York Times magazine story as saying "don't Mormons ... believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"
Romney said in a later television interview that using someone's religion as an attack line was "simply un-American," and Huckabee, who is courting evangelical Christians who distrust Mormonism, later apologized to his rival.
Huckabee's campaign earlier said his remarks had been taken out of context, and reaffirmed his support of universal religious tolerance.
Dennis Goldford, a professor of politics at Drake University, Iowa, said that the televised debate, which preceded a clash among Democratic candidates at the same venue on Thursday, had failed to shake up the Republican race.
"I don't think it moved any poll numbers," he said.
Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, led polls in Iowa for months after pouring millions of dollars into the state, but has seen Huckabee, a favorite of evangelical Christians, romp past him in recent weeks.
A loss in Iowa for Romney would be a hammer blow, as he is banking on a victory in the state and in the New Hampshire primary five days later to turn him into a serious player nationwide.
While in past debates, Huckabee appeared light-hearted, he dropped the wisecracks Wednesday, apparently trying to look presidential in a manner appropriate to his new top-tier status.
Climate change, a hot button issue among Democrats, who get their own last-chance debate on Thursday, made a rare appearance in the Republican race.
Senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani both declared global warming was real -- risking the ire of some conservatives who still reject scientific findings that man is worsening climate change.
"It's real, we have got to address it," said McCain, who is trying to bounce back after a campaign slump earlier this year.
Foreign policy was all but absent from the debate and the moderator, the editor of a local newspaper, strangely prohibited questions on Iraq or illegal immigration, two top issues.
Fred Thompson, the candidate who jumped into the race in September, but has failed to catch fire, squeezed in the best lines of the debate, and also warned "a good chunk" of the multi-trillion dollar US debt was owned by China.
"We're bankrupting the next generation, without any question," the former senator and screen star said.
Huckabee's sunny demeanor has also been tested in recent days as he fought off a controversy over a 1992 statement that AIDS patients should be quarantined, telling Fox News he would probably "say things a little differently" now.
A CBS/New York Times poll published Tuesday found the Republican race had undergone a sharp transformation in the last two months.
In October, Huckabee had just four percent in national polls -- now he is snapping at long-time front-runner Rudolph Giuliani's heels with 21 percent, compared to 22 percent for the former New York mayor.
The latest average of Iowa polls by website Realclearpolitics.com gives Huckabee a six percent lead in the state.
Giuliani has not deployed significant resources in Iowa, reasoning that his liberal social record is unlikely to win favor among social conservatives, which dominate the Republican electorate in the state.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
