Adwatch: Romney airs anti-Huckabee ad

TITLE: Choice: The Record

LENGTH: 30 seconds

AIRING: Iowa

SCRIPT: "I'm Mitt Romney and I approved this message. Two former governors, two good family men. Both pro-life, both support a Constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage. The difference? Mitt Romney stood up, and vetoed in-state tuition for illegal aliens, opposed driver's licenses for illegals. Mike Huckabee? Supported in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants. Huckabee even supported taxpayer-funded scholarships for illegal aliens. On immigration, the choice matters."

KEY IMAGES: The ad opens with a patriotic image of Romney standing in front of a flag. It then moves to two side-by-side photos of Romney and Huckabee, as graphics spell out Romney's efforts to curtail government benefits to illegal immigrants, as well as Huckabee's efforts to support them.

ANALYSIS: This ad, the first negative spot by Romney's campaign, is running only in Iowa, where Huckabee has erased the former Massachusetts governor's longstanding lead in the polls. In the campaign world, it's pretty mild stuff, with the narrator even conceding that Romney's rival is a good family man who opposes abortion and gay marriage. Romney says he holds the same views, key for Iowa's Christian conservative caucus-goers. But Romney also reaches out to the broader electorate by factually exposing Huckabee's record on a hot-button issue in the state. Romney stretches when he says he "stood up" against illegal immigration. While as governor he opposed driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants as well as in-state tuition for their children, he was quoted as saying realistically the country was not going to deport up to 11 million people, so it had to find some solution for dealing with them. Now, as a presidential contender, Romney says he opposes "amnesty" for illegal immigrants.