ORLANDO, Fla. - Front-runners Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney were forced to defend their conservative credentials by their campaign rivals Sunday night in the sharpest debate so far of the Republican presidential campaign.
"You've just spent the last year trying to fool people about your record. I don't want you to start fooling them about mine," Sen. John McCain jabbed at Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.
Former Sen. Fred Thompson turned Giuliani into his target, saying the former New York mayor supported federal funding for abortion, gun control and havens for illegal immigrants. "He sides with Hillary Clinton on each of those issues," he added, referring to the New York Democrat who leads in the polls for her party's presidential nomination.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)- Republican presidential candidates clashed Sunday over who is conservative enough to defeat Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, ahead of an evening debate in Florida.
"Look at my record and listen to my vision," Arizona Sen. John McCain told reporters while campaigning in Kissimmee, Fla. "I am far more conservative than any of the leading candidates, and I am, according to recent polls, the one conservative who could beat Sen. Clinton."
The GOP candidates were meeting for a 90-minute debate, the seventh of the 2008 campaign but only the second since actor-politician Fred Thompson joined the race. It was held during the deciding game in the American League baseball championship series between the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians.
McCain, in saying he has a better chance of defeating Clinton, borrowed a frequent claim by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who leads the Republican field in national polls. Yet even as McCain stressed his conservative voting record, he said he would consider Giuliani, who favors abortion rights and gay rights, to be his running mate.
"I think Rudy Giuliani is a fine man who led this nation and New York City after a terrible, terrible tragedy," McCain said of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Former Massachusetts Mitt Romney, who narrowly won a straw poll of conservative voters on Saturday, was targeted by McCain and other rivals as a very recent convert to conservatism.
Romney narrowly won the straw poll by the Family Research Council, although former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who was close behind, won overwhelmingly among voters who were present and not voting online.
Huckabee mentioned a 1994 video of Romney, while debating Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, defending a woman's right to abortion, saying he would support letting gays in the Boy Scouts and distancing himself from former President Reagan.
Huckabee said he has stuck to one position on key issues.
"I'm a conservative who has authenticity. I've got consistency. I'm a hardworking conservative," said Huckabee, appearing on "Fox News Sunday."
"Nobody's going to find some YouTube moments of me saying something radically different than what I'm saying today," he said, referring to the popular video-sharing Web site.
Romney deflected charges that he has flip-flopped on abortion and other social issues important to religious conservatives.
A Mormon, Romney said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that evangelicals may not accept his religion, "but they will certainly see me as someone who ... can carry the standard of conservatives for social, major social issues."
The field onstage was narrowed to eight candidates on Friday, when lesser-known conservative Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback dropped out of the race.
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Associated Press Writer H. Josef Hebert in Washington contributed to this report.
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