Jan. 1 (Bloomberg) -- After a yearlong campaign in Iowa, the Republican and Democratic presidential front-runners are boiling down their arguments to a six-letter word: change.

It's a tough sell. Both races are essentially at a draw before the Jan. 3 statewide caucuses.

``Nobody has been able to pull comfortably ahead, and they've been trying for 10 months to find a way to convince a sizable portion of the Republican or Democratic electorate that they are the right person,'' said Arthur Sanders, chairman of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Drake University in Des Moines.

Seventy-three percent of Iowa voters say the country is on the wrong track, according to a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll in late December. With the caucuses likely to set the stage for the rest of the campaign, candidates are going to great lengths, outlining how they would transform the status quo and put the country on the right track.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton says she'll use her experience as former first lady and a New York senator; John Edwards says he'll wage the toughest fight against special interests and corporations; and Barack Obama offers the ideals of hope and vision put to work on behalf of the American people, who he says are the real agents of change.

Experience and Style

For the Republican front-runners in Iowa, Mitt Romney invokes his experience as a former Massachusetts governor and chief executive and the memory of former President Ronald Reagan, while Mike Huckabee says his version of President George W. Bush's compassionate-conservative approach will help unite Americans to change the country.

Huckabee leads Romney among Republican caucus goers 32 percent to 26 percent in a Des Moines Register poll released yesterday. Senator John McCain of Arizona follows with 13 percent. Among Democrats, Obama has 32 percent support to Clinton's 25 percent. Edwards is backed by 24 percent. The poll, taken Dec. 27-30, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Clinton, 60, hammers on her theme across Iowa. It combines her experience to make changes with an indirect critique of her main rivals.

``Some people think you bring about change by demanding it; some people think you do it by hoping for it; I think you bring change by working really, really hard for it every single day,'' she said Dec. 30 in Traer.

`Fierce Urgency'

On the stump, Obama says the caucuses are a defining moment and borrows language from the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., who spoke of the ``fierce urgency of now.'' He urges his Iowa audiences to be part of a movement that will revolutionize American politics.

``We talked about change when were down, and we talked about change when we were up, and this change thing must be catching on because I notice know suddenly everybody's talking about change,'' Obama, 46, told a crowd in Des Moines on Dec. 30.

Edwards, 54, a former North Carolina senator, calls the election the ``great moral test of our generation.'' The former trial lawyer, ratcheting up his populist tone, makes his final pitch to rural and blue-collar workers by blaming ``corporate greed'' for economic and power imbalances in the country.

``Unless you've got a president who's willing to take on these drug companies, insurance companies on health care, willing to take on oil companies, power companies on the environment, nothing's going to change,'' Edwards said in Waverly, Iowa, Dec. 27.

`Changing Things'

The Republican race in Iowa pits two former governors against each other, with contrasts in style and substance.

Romney, 60, the co-founder of private equity firm Bain Capital LLC and a one-term governor, says he has lifelong experience at ``changing things.''

``We need somebody who understands how to build and strengthen the American spirit, the American family, at the same time use change to grow our economy and make us the most robust economy in the world,'' he told a crowd at Newton's Midtown Café Dec. 29.

Huckabee, meanwhile, says he'll refocus on the compassionate conservatism that Bush campaigned on in 2000 yet never realized in office and pressing domestic issues. He told an audience in Indianola, Iowa, that the country's survival depends on the next president addressing the budget deficit, immigration, the tax system, health-care coverage and education.

Huckabee's Stand

``If we don't make some changes to the way we do business in this country,'' the former Arkansas governor, 52, said, ``it really won't matter in another generation whether we call ourselves Democrat or Republican because there won't be enough of an America left to still be fighting for.''

Over the past week, the two also have sharpened their attacks on each other, with Huckabee calling Romney ``dishonest'' for changing his stances on issues such as abortion rights, and Romney's campaign aides pointing to what they called Huckabee's ``troubling record'' as governor on taxes and immigration.

``It's a record that is tough to defend, so his testiness and irritability when being questioned about it is obvious,'' Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said Dec. 30.

Yesterday, Huckabee called a Des Moines news conference to announce he would forgo negative campaigning. He then showed reporters an ad attacking Romney's record and said he decided that morning not to broadcast it in Iowa.

``Conventional political wisdom is that when you are hit and it's beginning to do damage, the smart play is to hit back,'' Huckabee said. ``We will run only the ads that talk about why I should be president, and not why Mitt Romney should not.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Des Moines at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 1, 2008 11:52 EST