LaHaye called Huckabee "the most electable candidate who shares our commitment."

As he has risen in polls, Huckabee has emphasized his own faith and in recent weeks has sought to draw subtle distinctions with his rivals by running a TV ad on the issue in the state.

"Faith doesn't just influence me. It really defines me. I don't have to wake up every day wondering what do I need to believe," Huckabee says in the ad. "Let us never sacrifice our principles for anybody's politics. Not now, not ever."

In other presidential campaign news:

• Democratic rivals assailed front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton Tuesday for a vote against Iran in light of a new intelligence report that says the Iranians stopped pursuing a nuclear weapon years ago.

One month before Iowa's leadoff caucuses the presidential candidates stood together in welcoming the report's assessment and criticizing President Bush's assertion that "nothing's changed" because of it.

They divided on the three-month-old Senate vote to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization — a resolution that only Clinton supported among the Democratic candidates. She said her vote was meant to encourage diplomacy, but several of her foes were having none of that and John Edwards said it sounded like war.

Broadcast on NPR, the radio-only debate was limited to three subjects: Iran, China and immigration. The Democrats, unlike the campaign's Republican contenders, proposed no drastic crackdown on illegal immigrants. On China, they said more should be done to put U.S. companies on equal footing with Chinese imports, but again they proposed no radical new remedies.

• Romney, ridiculed by rival Rudy Giuliani for employing illegal aliens at his "sanctuary mansion," said Tuesday he had fired the landscaper for his suburban Boston home after being told for a second time he had used undocumented workers on the property.

In a statement, Romney said: "After this same issue arose last year, I gave the company a second chance with very specific conditions. They were instructed to make sure people working for the company were of legal status."

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Contributing: Beth Fouhy and Glen Johnson