Huckabee visits Iowa in new role as leader of pack

By Carey Gillam

JOHNSTON, Iowa (Reuters) - Republican Mike Huckabee visited Iowa on Monday in the unaccustomed role of a leading presidential contender, and said his surging campaign was fueled by ordinary people who see him as their champion.

Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and former Baptist preacher, said his modest upbringing helped shape a political approach that has lifted his low-budget campaign from the bottom to the top of the Republican pack in Iowa.

"Having a front-row seat on humanity ... it gave me a different sense of what a person needs, what a family might need," Huckabee told a crowd of about 300 corporate agriculture workers at the last of three stops on Monday.

It was his first visit to the state since a Des Moines Register poll on Sunday showed him in first place in Iowa, which in one month kicks off the state-by-state battle to choose candidates for the November 2008 general election.

Earlier in the day, he made comparisons -- without naming names -- to the well-financed campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has vastly outspent him in Iowa but has seen Huckabee blow past him.

"We've got an army of ordinary people who are out there, not because someone's paying them to love me," Huckabee told reporters in Des Moines.

"We have people out there who are working hard because they believe in what I stand for and they'd like to have a president that didn't buy his way into the White House," he said.

But Huckabee drew a mixed response in Johnston as he touted his plans to revamp the U.S. tax code, rein in spending, seek energy independence, and enhance benefits for U.S. veterans.