WRAPUP 3-US candidates hone message; Huckabee pulls ad
(Adds Iowa poll paragraphs 7-8)
PERRY, Iowa, Dec 31 (Reuters) - White House hopefuls honed their closing messages and traded jabs over their records in Iowa on Monday, three days before the state opens the presidential nominating battle in a too-close-to-call race.
The leading contenders in both parties traded shots as a tight Iowa campaign ticked down to the end. Republican Mike Huckabee said he would not air an advertisement he prepared attacking rival Mitt Romney -- then showed it to reporters.
Democrat Hillary Clinton said she was better suited to tackle special interests in Washington than rival John Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who has made that issue the centerpiece of his campaign.
"It's easy to talk about taking on special interests," the New York senator and former first lady said in Keokuk, Iowa. "I've taken on the oil companies and I intend to keep doing it. It's something you don't have to do by yelling and screaming. Save your energy. Get the job done."
Polls show tight races in both parties in Iowa, which kicks off the state-by-state battle to choose candidates in the November presidential election.
A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll gave Clinton, seeking to be the first woman U.S. president, a four-point lead among Democrats over Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who were tied for second.
A separate Des Moines Register poll found Obama was the choice of 32 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers, up from 28 percent in late November, while Clinton held steady at 25 percent and Edwards was virtually unchanged at 24 percent.
The newspaper found 32 percent support for Mike Huckabee among Republicans, followed by Romney with 26 percent.
MOST ELECTABLE IN NOVEMBER
The Democratic caucuses -- in which people gather in locations around the state to publicly declare support for their choices -- begin at 6:30 p.m. CST/0030 GMT on Thursday and Republicans start 30 minutes later. Results begin appearing within a few hours.
All of the top Democrats argued they would be the most electable in the November 2008 election, and targeted undecided voters as they geared up mammoth operations to get out the vote on Thursday.
"If you will stand with me on January 3 and caucus with me, we can change the world," Obama told a crowd in Perry in central Iowa.
Polls showed many Iowans in both parties were undecided or open to changing their minds. A Democratic caucus rule allowing supporters of candidates who fail to gather 15 percent of support in a given precinct to switch to another candidate increased the uncertainty.
'FLUID RACE'
"There is a remarkable amount of fluidity in this race right now and a lot of undecideds," David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, told reporters.
He said all signs pointed to a large Democratic turnout on Thursday, which could be good for Obama and his effort to attract first-time caucus participants. The record Democratic turnout in 2004 was just more than 120,000.
Romney has spent the last few days airing ads attacking Huckabee's record on immigration, taxes and crime in Arkansas. Huckabee, a Baptist minister, has fired back with questions about Romney's honesty and suitability for the White House.
But he said he decided not to air a television ad that he prepared on Sunday in hopes of making the campaign more positive but then showed a portion of it to reporters.
"I just feel that we need to change the tone of the debate," he told reporters, standing before a large poster that said "Enough is enough" and flanked by signs attacking Romney's record.
Romney said the mixed message was confusing.
"On the one hand he says he wants to run a positive campaign, on the other hand he shows a negative campaign ad and hopes to promote and provide it to the public through the earned media," he said. "I think that's a very confusing message."
Earlier, bundled against the cold in a bright yellow running jacket, Huckabee took an early morning run around a Des Moines lake with a few supporters.
Asked who would win if he raced Romney, he took a jab at Romney's recent conversion to an abortion rights opponent. "Of course he'll be running both ways the whole time," Huckabee said.
At a news conference in Bellevue, Iowa, Romney criticized Huckabee for granting a number of pardons in an arbitrary manner while he was governor of Arkansas.
He said he would set up guidelines to handle pardons and defended his own decision as governor to deny a pardon to an Iraq war veteran who had sought to overturn an assault conviction for shooting someone with a BB gun when he was 13. Huckabee has criticized the decision.
"My desire was to make sure that I erred on the side of protecting the public, and I guess if I were Governor Huckabee I don't know that I'd be raising the issue of commutations and pardons," Romney said. (Additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, Ed Stoddard, Andy Sullivan; writing by John Whitesides; editing by Vicki Allen and Bill Trott) (For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)
