Now a front-runner, Huckabee prepares for Iowa debate heat

As a result of his skyrocketing poll numbers, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) is anticipating heightened criticism from his rivals when they take to the debate stage in Des Moines Wednesday afternoon.

Huckabee campaign manager Chip Saltsman told The Hill on Monday that he and the governor have been discussing ways to respond to criticisms they are expecting from Huckabee’s opponents.

{mosads}“They’ve certainly tried to attack us at every given opportunity they’ve had,” Saltsman said.

While Saltsman said Huckabee is prepared to defend his record and respond to any attacks, he said Huckabee will continue much of his strategy from the CNN/YouTube debate, where he tried to refrain from engaging in the back-and-forth that other candidates fell into.

“We’re not going to attack other Republicans,” Saltsman said.

Huckabee is sure to get more attention following a weekend full of news reports about some of his past statements regarding the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients and the role of Christians in the country.

As a Senate candidate in 1992, Huckabee responded to a questionnaire submitted by The Associated Press by saying that AIDS patients should be isolated from the general population and federal funding to find a cure should not be increased.

And Monday, the Drudge Report ran quotes from the former governor attributed to a 1998 report in Little Rock’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in which Huckabee said: “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.”

Saltsman acknowledged that Huckabee is prepared to respond to questions about some of these issues, but the campaign is hopeful that the debate will center on issues that play in Iowa, such as immigration.

Huckabee’s record as governor increasingly has come into the spotlight, including news reports about his role in the release of convicted rapist Wayne DuMond, who later committed a murder.

On these and other issues, Huckabee appears to be adjusting to the intense scrutiny of a national media that is for the first time this year taking his candidacy seriously.

Saltsman said Huckabee is prepared to answer questions about some of the weekend’s news reports on his record, but the debate “won’t just be the stuff you hear on the national side.”

A Newsweek poll released over the weekend shows Huckabee trouncing previous Iowa front-runner and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney 39 percent to 17 among likely Iowa caucus-goers.

Despite the attention paid to both Huckabee’s and Romney’s religions in the past two weeks, particularly after Romney’s delivery of a speech on Mormonism last week, attacking Huckabee for comments made on faith or social issues would be a mistake, according to at least one evangelical leader.

“If they do, they do [so] to their own detriment,” Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council (FRC), told The Hill.

“He could become the poster child for the battle for faith in America, and [his rivals] don’t want that,” Perkins said.

Huckabee might also face a backlash if he tries to distance himself too much from those earlier statements. The consensus is that Huckabee’s surging support in both state and national polls has been the result of evangelical Christians and socially conservative voters rallying to his cause.

And though Perkins has not endorsed a candidate and said he continues to have “policy differences” with Huckabee, he said he was pleased that Huckabee appeared to stand his ground through the weekend media storm.

“I thought he handled himself well over the weekend,” Perkins said. “He didn’t recant.”

One Republican strategist, who said Huckabee “will be at the center of attention,” said Romney will likely try to attack Huckabee on tax issues because he is “vulnerable with economic conservatives.”

That vulnerability has been highlighted by the anti-tax group Club for Growth, which has targeted Huckabee at every turn of his campaign, most recently with ads in Iowa and South Carolina. The Republican strategist said Iowa voters should anticipate some kind of paid media from the Romney campaign highlighting those attacks in the coming days.

The strategist also warned that former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), “shocked and frustrated” by his sinking poll numbers, has recently shown more of a willingness to go after his opponents, specifically Huckabee and Romney.

The Thompson campaign said it doesn’t know whether the former senator was planning on targeting Huckabee any more than usual Wednesday.

Aside from a fundraising boost and increased name recognition, Saltsman said there is another advantage to the increased glare of the spotlight.

Instead of “waiting 15 to 20 minutes to get a question … somehow I think we’ll get the first question or two out of the box,” Saltsman said.