Politics

By KAREN TUMULTY

The Long Shot Candidate Hunting season is open on Mike Huckabee In the bizzaro universe of presidential politics, it was something of a compliment when former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney made a seemingly casual swipe at a back-of-the-pack rival during a recent Iowa television interview. Mike Huckabee, he declared, had supported "special tuition breaks to the children of illegal immigrants."

It marked the first time the Iowa front runner had singled out Huckabee for an attack. And that can mean only one thing: Romney is starting to worry about the former Arkansas Governor, whose sunny, underfinanced, overperforming presidential quest is generating buzz. "You never put the crosshairs on a dead carcass," Huckabee tells me. "Somebody sees me as a real wall mount, and that's a good thing." Antitax groups and conservative columnists have also begun criticizing Huckabee, mostly for the tax hikes he oversaw in Little Rock.

The attention comes as conservative evangelical voters, uneasy about their options, are taking a fresh look at Huckabee. It remains to be seen whether he can build the kind of organization that will bring out caucusgoers on a wintry Iowa night. It's now clear, though, that he can expect more roughing up from his opponents. "I always enjoy letting the other guy draw the first blood," Huckabee says. "Once blood is drawn, all is fair in love and war."

FIREWORKS

Necessary Roughness

THE NEWS The Oct. 30 Democratic debate in Philadelphia was an all-out assault on Hillary Clinton. While almost every participant took a shot at Clinton--who has a significant lead in most polls--the semi-coordinated attacks of John Edwards and Barack Obama did the most damage. Obama left many of the hard knocks to his rival from North Carolina and then took the openings to slip in his own message.

EDWARDS: "Senator Clinton says that she believes she can be the candidate for change, but she defends a broken system that's corrupt in Washington."

OBAMA: "Part of the reason that Republicans are obsessed with you, Hillary, is because [it's] a fight they're very comfortable having. It's the fight we've been through since the '90s."

EDWARDS: "Unless I missed something, Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes just a few minutes ago."

OBAMA: "We have just gone through one of the most secretive Administrations in our history, and not releasing [correspondence with former President Clinton] is a problem."

SHAMELESS

The tricky part of a panderfest is judging which plea for support is more shameless: betraying a team or exploiting a dead leader?

[ SQRT ] Giuliani Professed "Yankee Fan in Chief" Rudy Giuliani said on Oct. 23 he'd root for his team's bitter rivals from Boston--a town suspiciously close to key primary state New Hampshire. Coincidence? [ ] Romney Trying hard to sell him-self as the Gipper Redux, Mitt Romney released an economic plan that would institute a "Reagan Zone of Economic Freedom."

GOD-O-METER

A Secular Sermon

On Oct. 29, in a speech titled "The Moral Test of Our Generation," John Edwards cast his race against front runner Hillary Clinton as a moral crusade. By accepting corporate campaign cash, he argued, she perpetuates a culture of corruption. Edwards made no explicit references to God or faith but decried "winning elections at the cost of selling your soul" and cited "the one moral commandment that makes us Americans: to give our children a better future than we received." While his opponents have more robust religious-outreach efforts, the Methodist Southerner may have hit just the right notes for cultural conservatives. [SECULARIST=1] [THEOCRAT=10] 4

beliefnet Daily God-o-Meter readings of all the presidential candidates are at beliefnet.com/godometer