Beverly Hills, CA-

GOP Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is on a western fundraising swing to raise cash for his surging campaign. He stopped in Beverly Hills for some private fundraisers, but took a moment yesterday to answer some questions from the press corps. We asked him about Romney’s new ad that challenges Huckabee’s crime record as Arkansas governor. Huckabee called the ad inaccurate because he was “hardly soft on crime”, pointing to the 16 convicted murderers he placed on death row. Huckabee described these tactics by his rivals as “desperate… and…despicable.”

Also, I asked him on another report: More push-polling claims, this time in Florida against Rudy Giuliani, to a group who have claimed, in the past, to be supporters of Huckabee. Huck again emphatically denounced the push-polling and wondered if, in fact, these people claiming to support his campaign were actually trying to help a rival because he has repeatedly asked them to stop.

“If someone thinks they are doing us a favor, they aren’t,”Huckabee said.” Maybe they are tied to somebody else’s campaign? If so, let’s expose it.”

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Governor Romney responded to the push polling controversy today calling it “un-American” and blasted the McCain-Feingold bill saying that, “the result of that legislation you are seeing played out in politics today. If you will, the monster is this McCain-Feingold bill and it has to be repealed. It points out just how ineffective it has been in removing the influence of money and underhanded politics.”

People in New Hampshire and Iowa have received phone calls that raise questions about Romney’s Mormonism and military service. Initially the phone call sounded like a poll, but then became negative. The New Hampshire and Iowa frontrunner was clearly angry today when he blasted the unknown person or group behind the calls, “I think the attempts to attack me on the basis of my faith are un-American. This is a time where we are preparing for Thanksgiving. A time when we are going to celebrate the fact that this nation was founded in part to allow people to enjoy religious freedom.”

Senator McCain has asked for the New Hampshire Attorney General to investigate, but Romney called it “ironic.” He then struck at McCain directly, “Senator McCain is the father of McCain-Feingold and it’s McCain- Feingold that opens the pathway for this very kind of political technique.”

The Romney campaign has called for a full investigation, but right now there are no clues as to who could be behind the negative phoning. It could be a rival campaign playing dirty, but it’s unlikely someone will fess up unless they are forced to.