ALTOONA, Iowa (AP) – In a grudge match before next week’s presidential caucuses, Republican Mitt Romney played it safe Saturday with a series of quick coffee-shop stops where he delivered a final pitch that was long on Iowa platitudes but short on substance.

The former Massachusetts governor’s brief remarks – filled with storytelling, chitchat and bullet points of his agenda – belied the cutthroat nature of the GOP race and contrasted sharply with his hard-hitting television ads against rivals Mike Huckabee and John McCain.

“My vision for America is an optimistic one. I’ve brought change to what I’ve touched before. I’ll bring change to Washington. I will also strengthen the American family,” Romney said at every appearance, presenting his closing argument five days before voting.

Romney’s strategy calls for winning early contests. But he’s fighting to move past Huckabee, the come-from-behind former Arkansas governor leading in Iowa polls, and he’s running a commercial questioning whether Huckabee is “ready to make tough decision” and calling him soft on spending, immigration, crime and foreign policy.

In next-up New Hampshire, Romney’s campaign announced Saturday that it was airing a second ad in as many days taking McCain to task on immigration. The Arizona senator is gaining on Romney, who has an edge in state polls.

Nevertheless, the blistering criticism Romney has doled out to his rivals in recent weeks gave way Saturday to happy talk and voter contact in Iowa. He ignored his GOP opponents.

But Huckabee wasn’t in a forgetting or forgiving frame of mind. Speaking in Osceloa, he denounced political attack ads, saying voters want a president who will tell them what he would do if elected. He criticized attack ads aimed at him, saying, “If I believed half of that stuff, I wouldn’t vote for myself.” He singled out Romney, saying “Mitt doesn’t have anything to stand on except to stand against.”

Jay Sekulow, a lawyer at the American Center for Law and Justice and a Romney backer who was traveling with the candidate Saturday, argued: “What some are calling a negative campaign, is really contrast.”

Seeking for him to reach as many people as possible, Romney’s campaign packed his schedule with six public events from the Midtown Cafe in Newton to the Smokey Row Coffee House in Oskaloosa.

“No one votes for yesterday. We vote for tomorrow. Elections are about the future. Our future, our family’s future, our nation’s future,” Romney proclaimed at each stop. He said the coming years will be determined by how the country tackles challenges before it – radical violent Jihadists, energy, health care, education, immigration, globalization.

He shook dozens of hands but didn’t take questions from his audiences at his first three events. Aides also weren’t eager to make the candidate available to a throng of reporters traveling with him. Instead, aides offered up two surrogates for interviews. The campaign sought to keep Romney on message and was mindful that an overworked candidate could be prone to campaign-damaging gaffes in the homestretch.

Thus, the day largely amounted to mini made-for-TV pep rallies.

Romney, going casual in a blue shirt without a tie, recalled how his son Josh traveled to all the state’s counties in a Winnebago after a promise that Romney’s wife, Ann, made to Iowans. “She didn’t know there were 99 counties in Iowa,” Romney cracked.

“I have been all over Iowa,” Romney told the crowd. “I’ve had over 200 events with Iowa voters like this. Two hundred. So people are bored to tears when they see me.”

It was a joke, and the crowd obliged with laughter.

At another point, Romney mistakenly said: “I won’t remember my friends here in Iowa, you’ve been an inspiration to me and to Ann …”

Standing next to him, his wife interrupted: “You said you won’t remember Iowans?”

“I said I won’t forget. I’m often corrected,” Romney said good-naturedly. “This is good! This is like spell check right here!”

“I won’t forget to remember. I’ll remember all my friends here in Iowa,” he said, telling Ann “thanks, Sweetie.”

The Sonny and Cher schtick played well with the crowd, but it and Romney’s 11th-hour pitch didn’t go over well with some.

“I thought I would hear what he’s going to do for the country,” grumbled Geoff Lindsay of Des Moines, a former Marine who served in Iraq. “Instead, I got a radio ad.” His wife, Heidi, agreed: “I didn’t hear much but one-liners.”

The 25-year-olds are registered Republicans but haven’t decided who to back in the caucuses.

AP-ES-12-29-07 1552EST