Huckabee: 'this is a Bloodsport'

Mike Huckabee, the nominal front runner in Iowa on the Republican side, took the unusual step of leaving the state yesterday to appear on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

He flew from the political maelstrom of the first vote in the 2008 race for the White House straight into a different storm in California - the Hollywood writers' strike.

Huckabee only discovered that his participation on the Tonight Show would involve crossing the picket line when he was quizzed about his TV appearance by reporters.

He said he fully supported the strikers and was unaware that Leno was going back on air without the blessing of the Writers Guild of America.

Huckabee took the calculated risk that his absence from the stump in Iowa for some of the final hours of campaigning would be more than compensated by his exposure on national television.

He used the show to explain his recent attacks on his main rival Mitt Romney, saying he was forced to be negative to counteract the fact that Romney had spent more than 20 times as much on his campaign.

"If you can't stand the sight of your own blood, don't run for anything because this is a bloodsport," Huckabee said.

He also sought to dispel some of the ridicule he has come under in recent days for announcing at a press conference that he was pulling an advert attacking Romney because he had decided it was not right to campaign negatively, only to then show the advert to reporters.

He said if he had not shown the advert, the media would have suspected him of making up the story for cynical purposes.

"If I was really being disingenuous I would have run it for three days and then pulled it."

The former governor of Arkansas has received a big surge in his political fortunes in the past few weeks, with social conservatives swinging behind him.

But the most recent poll in Iowa by Zogby International for Reuters showed his lead over Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, reduced to just two points - less than the margin of error. The poll had Huckabee on 28% to Romney's 26%.

Asked by Leno which Democratic candidate he would most want to run against, Huckabee paid tribute to Barack Obama. "He's trying to do what I think I am trying to do - to practice what I call horizontal politics, not left and right, not up and down."

With Huckabee and Romney virtually neck and neck in Iowa, John McCain, the senator for Arizona, spent most of yesterday in New Hampshire, campaigning for next week's primary. He is aiming for third place in Iowa, with the hope that such a finish will provide the platform he needs to make a real impact when New Hampshire goes to the polls on January 8.