Poll Shows Romney Remains Ahead in Iowa; GOP Leaders Say They Still Have Questions

One week before former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney returns to the state where values rank chief among a large segment of Republican voters, he faced an onslaught of character attacks from both the left and the right.

Rivals for the GOP presidential nomination questioned whether the frontrunner is a "true conservative," while President Barack Obama's campaign accused him of being "stunningly inconsistent."
"Inconsistency on the issues" defeated Romney in Iowa four years ago during his first bid for the Republican nomination, said Bob Vander Plaats, a conservative evangelical leader and who was the state chairman of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's winning bid in the 2008 Iowa caucus campaign.
Huckabee had a natural appeal to the state's social conservatives, Vander Plaats said, while Romney was accused of wavering on abortion and same-sex marriage. Romney placed second in the 2008 Iowa caucuses.
Despite the criticism, Romney held a narrow lead in a recent NBC News/Marist poll of voters who said their main concern is that a candidate shares their values.
Romney won the top spot with 23 percent of support, compared to 20 percent for former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain. The poll taken Oct. 3-5 had a sampling error of plus or minus 5.1 percentage points.
Thirty percent of respondents in the poll of 311 likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers said the most important quality that will decide their vote is that the candidate shares their values. By comparison, 29 percent said it's the candidate's positions on the issues, 20 percent said the top quality is the ability to beat Obama in 2012, and 17 percent say it's having the experience to govern.
Yet when Romney returns to Iowa on Oct. 20 to meet with voters, he will stick to a theme that's been consistent throughout his campaign, according to Iowa campaign spokesman David Kochel.
"The governor will continue to focus on how to fix the economy and create jobs," Kochel said, "because that is the primary concern of the American people, particularly the millions who are unemployed or underemployed in the Obama economy."
Romney has remained steadfast this year in his focus on the economy in his previous two visit to Iowa this year.
But the pressure is still on for Romney to answer Iowans questions, Vander Plaats said.
Iowa voters want "not only to hear what a candidate thinks, but we want to know why does a candidate think the way they think," said Vander Plaats, who also serves as chief executive officer of The Family Leader, a conservative nonprofit advocacy group.
Romney remains mum on an invitation to a presidential candidate forum sponsored by the group in November. He also turned down an invitation to appear in presidential forum Oct. 22 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds that's sponsored by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, a nonpartisan, nonprofit Christian group.