Mike Huckabee says he hopes it was the right move -- his decision yesterday not to air a negative ad against Mitt Romney. Instead of airing the ad, he played it for reporters.

He said this morning that he knows a lot of people view that as "a stunt."

But he says he simply decided that if running a negative ad is "what it takes to get elected," then it's a "lousy way to run a country."

Early on New Year's Day, Huckabee was urging people at a pizza restaurant in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, to turn out for the caucuses on Thursday.

Tomorrow night, instead of doing some last-minute campaigning in Iowa, Huckabee will be in Los Angeles, trading jokes with Jay Leno on NBC's "Tonight Show." It'll be Leno's first show back since the still-ongoing writers' strike began.

A similar late-night appearance backfired for Fred Thompson when he irked voters in New Hampshire by skipping a debate in order to announce his candidacy on Leno's show last fall.

But an Iowa supporter says he thinks it's OK for Huckabee to try to get some national exposure.