Republicans in final push

Washington: Republican presidential candidates have one week to convince Iowa voters that they are the best prepared to defeat President Barack Obama next year.

The Midwestern state holds the country's first nominating contest on January 3 — statewide precinct caucus meetings.

They likely will winnow the seven-person field and shape the coming six-month string of state-by-state primary elections and caucuses leading up to the Republican National Convention that officially names a candidate in August.

Obama is vulnerable, but the tangle of Republicans vying for the nomination to challenge the president in November has left the party divided.

National front-runner Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, is disliked and not trusted by conservative Republicans who have thrown their support behind a series of other candidates whose policy promises are more palatable to them. But each of those candidates, Representative Michele Bachmann, Texas Governor Rick Perry, former businessman Herman Cain and now former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich have all grabbed support and quickly risen in the polls before losing steam under closer scrutiny by voters and the news media.

Many of those expected to take part in the Iowa caucuses remain undecided. And while Romney appears stronger in the state than he had earlier, polls show his biggest rivals are Gingrich and the libertarian-leaning Texas Representative Ron Paul.

Romney released a new television commercial for the state in which he touted his background as a conservative businessman and cited a "moral imperative for America to stop spending more money than we take in. It's killing jobs."