Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee complained Saturday that he always gets "the God questions" when he'd rather be talking about public policy, and denied there's any conflict between his faith and the right things to do as president.
Huckabee addressed a youth-oriented audience by satellite, one of four candidates who agreed to participate in the forum sponsored by MTV, The Associated Press and MySpace. The former Baptist preacher was asked almost right off if he would be capable of making decisions in the Oval Office that might be at odds with his religion.
"There's not this glaring conflict," he said. "Faith helps me to understand what is right."
Religious conservatives have provided much of Huckabee's support and he's not been shy about courting them, an effort that continues in the last stretch before the more than 20 presidential nomination contests across the country Tuesday.
"I always get asked the God questions," he said, adding that "it's really been frustrating" that people don't want to know more about his work as Arkansas governor.
Rep. Ron Paul told the forum he opposed U.S. intervention in Sudan's Darfur region and placed little faith in the ability of the United Nations to relieve the crisis there. He was asked what he'd do to stop the crisis from turning into a genocide on the scale of that experienced in Rwanda.
"I don't believe in using force in that manner," he said. "Under the Constitution, we're not allowed to do that."
He said he might support some interim aid, steered through international agencies, to address "these social problems in Africa."
Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton also agreed to take part. Huckabee opened the forum, speaking from Montgomery, Ala., and Paul spoke from Victoria, Texas.
The U.N. estimates that 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced since ethnic African rebels in Darfur took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination, in 2003.
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