FORT LAUDERDALE - Little more than asterisks in the public opinion polls, the lesser-known candidates for president tried Monday to appeal to the most conservative elements of the Republican Party in an attempt to break into top-tier status.
Hot-button social issues, especially related to abortion and homosexuality, were the most frequent questions posed to seven candidates for their party's presidential nomination at the Values Voter debate at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
The candidates weren't constrained by political niceties and often were unusually pointed for politicians in their rhetoric.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, for example, said many Americans don't understand the threat from Islamic militants.
"It's a theological war. It's not politically correct to say that. It's just the truth," he said. "We're fighting a people who will not be satisfied until every last one of us is dead."
Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo termed it "a clash of civilizations."
Several said they'd favor a constitutional amendment banning abortion and several said they would appoint only anti-abortion judges.
"If a judicial candidate can look at a sonogram of an unborn child and not see a valuable human life, I will not appoint that judicial candidate to the federal bench," said Duncan Hunter, a California congressman.
Alan Keyes, a former United Nations diplomat, linked the fight against terrorism to abortion. He said the fight against killing is no different than the "fight against the killing of innocents in the womb. The killing is the same. The principle is the same."
Keyes, Huckabee and Hunter said they'd support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. And John Cox, an Illinois businessman, said such an amendment was needed to protect children from "the homosexual lobby."
Tancredo warned that the country is "just one kooky judge away from having homosexual marriage forced on the rest of us."
On faith and values, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback said the nation needs to return to what he termed the three basics: life, family and faith.
"There is a degradation of our society, especially the morals of our society," Tancredo said. "Bill Clinton redefined morality to the level of an alley cat."
Several of the candidates told the audience when they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal saviors. For Brownback, it was at age 13 when he was on his way to feed the pigs on a Kansas farm. For Cox, it was on a commuter train. And for Huckabee, it was while he was at Bible school as a small child.
Ron Paul, a Texas congressman who's been involved with the Libertarian Party, occasionally differed with the other candidates. He said the most important constitutional principle is restraining the government.
When others said, for example, they'd like to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage, Paul said he didn't want to clutter the document. He said marriage isn't a state function. It should be left to churches and shouldn't require a government license.
As he had said at other presidential debates and appearances, Paul said Islamic radicals aren't anti-American by accident. "They come here and kill us because we occupy their lands," he said.
The United States went to war in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction he said didn't exist and to enforce a United Nations resolution, which he said was "criminal."
He also said restricting civil liberties in the war on terrorism could end up being used against Christians.
Organizers said they had a waiting list for the first-ever Values Voter debate, but about a third of the 2,700 seats at the Broward Center for Performing Arts were empty. The debate was aired on the Internet, some radio stations, and a religious channel available to satellite television subscribers.
Before the debate began, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle made an appearance. He has received national attention in recent months for his comments characterizing gays as promiscuous and unhappy people, and was greeted with cheers and a standing ovation.
None of the front-runners was there, but with lecterns set up for each of the absent four Rudolph Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mitt Romney they didn't escape scrutiny.
Giuliani's absence particularly irked debate committee member Janet Folger, president of Dania Beach-based Faith2Action, who mentioned him by name in her pre-debate remarks.
He spent much of the day Monday in Fort Lauderdale meeting with supporters and raising money. Though some of his positions on issues such as abortion and gay rights wouldn't please people at the debate, Giuliani told reporters after touring a local roofing company that he wasn't avoiding values voters. He said he wasn't aware of the event.
Previously, his spokesman offered a different reason: that Giuliani can't participate in every debate he's invited to.
To those who "had something more important to do than talk to those of us who represent God's principles," Folger had a prediction: "Those who snubbed us, they will not win."
