DES MOINES -- In the final hours before the Iowa caucuses, the top two Republican candidates continued their verbal slugfest by trading accusations of foul play, which could sour an electorate that says it abhors negative campaigning and slime-ball politicking.
Is this another example of boys behaving badly?
Here's the latest ugliness in the premier presidential boxing bout today:
"The Romney for President campaign is once again misleading Iowans by sending incorrect precinct caucus location information to the supporters of Republican front-runner Mike Huckabee," stated the press release emailed this morning by Eric Woolson, Huckabee's Iowa campaign director.
Huckabee's national manager, Chip Saltsman is quoted in the press release saying:
"When the millions of dollars he poured into negative TV and radio ads, the millions more he spent on negative direct mail and the weeks and weeks of negative comments Mitt Romney and his surrogates failed to erode Governor Huckabee's strong grassroots support, the Romney camp now resorts to sending phony information deliberately intended to confuse caucus goers."
Saltsman cited a mailer from the Romney campaign to an identified Huckabee supporter that lists the Windsor Heights Precinct 3 as Cowles Elementary School when it is actually at 3E Electrical, 953 73rd Street.
"There are no caucuses for Republicans at Cowles Elementary," Saltsman said. "It's bad enough, yet not surprising, that the Romney campaign once again has the wrong information."
He continued, "What puts this mailer clearly into the dirty tricks category is the fact that the Romney campaign had repeatedly called this voter and every time she identified herself as a Mike Huckabee supporter. They absolutely know who they're targeting for misleading information yet they're doing it to send Governor Huckabee's supporters on a wild goose chase to keep their votes from counting. If they're doing it in Windsor Heights, they can and probably are doing it all across the state."
Duck!
Here's the Romney response by Tim Albrecht, Romney's Iowa press secretary:
"This is a reckless and irresponsible accusation, especially because we've received information from our supporters that they received calls providing inaccurate information about the governor (Romney) and caucus locations. There is no excuse for these types of activities and they have no part in the caucus process."
OfftheBus asked Albrecht if the Romney incorrect caucus location mailings were intended to mislead and confuse the Huckabee supporters.
"It was a simple mistake. All of our supporters, along with likely GOP voters, and some Huckabee supporters, received the same incorrect mailers by mistake. Even in those incorrect mailers, it stated right there: Please verify your caucus locations. The incorrect caucus locations were based on information that we had received from the Iowa GOP," said Albrecht.
Albrecht said that he received three emails from the State GOP with caucus locations, the basis for their information for the incorrect caucus location mailing.
He sent me copies of the Iowa Republican Party's emails and sure enough, Albrecht was right.
Later, the Romney campaign did correct the caucus locations and sent another mailing out to the same list of voters, which included Romney and Huckabee supporters as well as likely GOP caucus-goers.
The Huckabee and Romney camps have been sounding off with charges and counter-charges of foul play in the last two months of this campaign, probably due to the rising poll numbers for the insurgent former Arkansas governor and a worrying dip in the polls for the former Massachusetts governor.
"There have been reports on push-polling by Huckabee supporters and the Huckabee organization should call on those groups to stop instead of making reckless claims," said Albrecht.
And Tim Albrecht gets the last punch in this battle for the hearts - and votes - of the Iowa social conservatives until around 8 o'clock tonight, when the results of the GOP caucuses start rolling into the Des Moines Convention Center.