Republican presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry talks with Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, left, during a hunting outing near Merrill, Iowa, Saturday Oct. 22, 2011. About a half-dozen Republican candidates and about 1,000 evangelical activists plan to attend the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition in Des Moines Saturday, as the Republican presidential campaign continues its search for a more conservative alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Dave Weaver)
Republican presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry talks with Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, left, during a hunting outing near Merrill, Iowa, Saturday Oct. 22, 2011. About a half-dozen Republican candidates and about 1,000 evangelical activists plan to attend the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition in Des Moines Saturday, as the Republican presidential campaign continues its search for a more conservative alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Dave Weaver)
Republican presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, center, greets an unidentified hunter before a hunting outing near Merrill, Iowa, Saturday Oct. 22, 2011. About a half-dozen Republican candidates and about 1,000 evangelical activists plan to attend Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition in Des Moines Saturday, as the Republican presidential campaign continues its search for a more conservative alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Dave Weaver)
Republican presidential contender Rick Perry, right, and Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, take questions from the media Saturday Oct. 22, 2011 before a hunting trip near Merrill, Iowa. (AP Photo/Dave Weaver)
Republican presidential hopeful, businessman Herman Cain, campaigns outside of Kinnick stadium in Iowa City, Iowa, before Iowa's NCAA college football game against Indiana, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. About a half-dozen Republican candidates and about 1,000 evangelical activists plan to attend Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition in Des Moines Saturday night as the Republican presidential campaign continues its search for a more conservative alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Brian Ray)
Republican presidential hopeful, businessman Herman Cain, campaigns outside of Kinnick stadium in Iowa City, Iowa, before Iowa's NCAA college football game against Indiana, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. About a half-dozen Republican candidates and about 1,000 evangelical activists plan to attend Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition in Des Moines Saturday night as the Republican presidential campaign continues its search for a more conservative alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Brian Ray)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Evangelical activists, Iowa's most potent conservative voting bloc, are sharply divided barely 10 weeks away from the state's leadoff caucuses.
A half-dozen GOP contenders sought Saturday to sharpen their Christian conservative credentials, and at times allay doubts, in an effort to gain any edge with this influential group before the state's Jan. 3 caucuses.
Businessman Herman Cain sought to clarify his position on abortion after suggesting this week the issue was a matter of choice. He declared before roughly 1,000 devout Iowa social conservatives at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition that he believed human life began "from conception. No abortions. No exceptions."
He later said in answering a question from a panelist, "I believe abortion should be clearly stated as illegal across this country."
Cain has risen sharply in the polls recently, stirring the interest of tea party activists and Republicans drawn to the former Godfather's Pizza CEO's business background and outsider status.
But he has also drawn new scrutiny, and came under attack by some of his fellow Republican candidates after comments in a CNN interview this week.
"What I'm saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make," Cain told CNN host Piers Morgan.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who has reached out aggressively to evangelical conservatives in Iowa, seized on the comments and criticized Cain last week. Santorum was expected to speak later Saturday.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry took a veiled jab at Romney, who had supported abortion rights but declared his opposition during his term as Massachusetts governor as he was weighing a presidential bid.
"Pro-life is not a matter of campaign convenience," said Perry, who has stepped up his attacks on Romney's conservative profile.
But Perry also noted "It is a liberal canard to say I am personally pro-life but government should stay out of that decision."
"That is not true," Cain said when asked about Perry's comments. "That is just an attempt to try to discredit me. The statement that I made that wasn't played with the clip that everybody's going crazy over ? I am pro-life from conception. No abortions, no exceptions."
Evangelical conservatives have yet to rally around any single candidate aggressively courting them, seeking the kind of lift that carried former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to victory in the leadoff caucuses in 2008.
"I don't see anyone galvanizing people like they did for Mike Huckabee," said Steve Scheffler, president of the event's sponsor and a leading social conservative activist in Iowa. "And I'd be lying if I told you that can change in one event."
Activists attending the coalition's forum at the Iowa State Fairgrounds weighed pitches from three candidates who have made the most aggressive appeals so far ? including Santorum, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Perry as well as Cain, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
Bachmann, who won the Iowa GOP straw poll in August with help from Iowa's politically active network of evangelical pastors, proclaimed her support for a constitutional amendment making abortion illegal.
"I believe that the government must intervene and I stand for a federal constitutional amendment to protect life from conception until natural death," Bachmann told the audience, prompting cheers.
Candidates campaigned across Iowa Saturday, convening in Des Moines for the event, which was seen as a chance to leave a mark on this constituency.
But the forum didn't draw Romney, who has led national GOP polls all year and was in New Hampshire on Saturday. Despite an aggressive effort by the event's planners, he declined an invitation, in part because he is well-known in Iowa from his 2008 White House run and is skipping multicandidate gatherings in the state.
Romney has had a touchy relationship with evangelical conservatives, many of whom are leery of Romney's Mormon faith and his changed positions on social issues such as gay and abortion rights.
He has attended national meetings of conservatives, including the Values Voter Summit in Washington this month, but is emphasizing economic, rather than social issues.
That left the stage Saturday to candidates targeting voters who made up roughly half of GOP caucusgoers in 2008, according to exit polls.
However, influential pastors say their network of politically active clergy is divided. Likewise, Christian home-school activists, a well-networked group that worked behind the scenes for Huckabee, apparently have no preferred candidate.
Perry gained attention for a national day of prayer he hosted in Houston in August. But some of his luster with evangelical voters has faded in light of his 2007 executive order requiring school-age girls be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease that can cause cancer.
Santorum, an anti-abortion leader while in the Senate, has impressed social conservative leaders in Iowa, but trails Perry and Bachmann in fundraising.
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Online:
Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition: http://ffciowa.com
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