Mike Huckabee took an unusual turn from Iowa ahead of Thursday's caucuses, flying to Los Angeles to do a spot on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" on the show's first night back from a writer's strike. 

Huckabee, known for his quick one-liners, offered a few punch lines for Iowans before he left, but his decision to forego Iowa caucus-goers for Hollywood on the eve of the first-in-the-nation vote drew some criticism from opponents.

"My focus is on the caucuses here in Iowa. I think Mike is more concerned about the caucus in Los Angeles," said Mitt Romney. "So my focus is a difficult job -- to vote in the caucuses and connecting my message with the people of Iowa, and I think that's the right course for my campaign."

Huckabee wasn't likely to win any votes from Hollywood writers either. They protested his decision to cross the picket line and appear on a show that is returning without its union-approved writing staff.

Click here to read The Associated Press report on the writers strike's mix with election politics.

While still keeping with his plans to travel to Los Angeles, Huckabee said he supports the writers and did not think he would be crossing a picket line because he thought the writers had made an agreement to allow late-night shows on the air.

That's true for the "Late Show With David Letterman," where Hillary Clinton was set to appear Wednesday night, but it's not the case with Leno, and pickets outside Leno's Burbank, Calif., studio targeted Huckabee.

"Huckabee is a scab," read one picket sign.

Earlier in the day, Huckabee also shrugged off the charges that he's not a serious candidate if he goes on Leno.  

Huckabee told reporters he "tried to (get) Jay Leno to come out here and do the interview but I have to do it out there. So I'll inconvenience myself a little bit. But certainly my campaign is active. One thing I'm doing and the person who said (the complaint) most likely isn't doing is, and that is I'm talking to you guys everyday, answering your questions. So I think that's what's people who run for president ought to do, is be responsible, take the questions wherever they come from, whether they come from you, or even the more serious questions from Jay Leno."

Campaigning until early afternoon, Huckabee practiced his comedic timing as he tried to work up the crowd, joking with voters that caucusing for him will cure all their ills.

"For all caucus-goers who wear one of my badges, it instantly warms your body temperature," he said to laughter. "People were saying if they put one of my bumper stickers on their cars they were getting significantly better mileage. Some of you are saying you really don't think that's going to work. Well, try it until November 2008, if it doesn't work, then you can go ahead and take it off.

"I do know that realtors across Iowa have said that putting one of those yards signs in a yard actually improves re-sale value of a home. You say you don't believe any of that? Well believe this: I need you to go to caucus and vote for me," he said.

But not everything in Iowa was fun and games for Huckabee, whose staff manning phone banks in his Des Moines headquarters told FOX News that volunteers calling Huckabee supporters at home are being told that their supporters have already been called by people identifying themselves as Romney backers. The phone callers are giving the Huckabee supporters the wrong caucus locations. 

The Huckabee staffers are trying to hunt down voice-mail messages with the wrong information to prove the claims.  

Romney aides vehemently denied the calls were coming from their camp, and said they were looking into similar claims.

"We have received similar reports from Romney supporters who have also gotten calls giving out the wrong caucus locations.  The Romney campaign is making routine get-out-the-vote calls, just like everyone else.  We do not condone activity of this nature," said Romney Press Secretary Eric Fehrnstrom.

FOX News' Serafin Gomez and Shushannah Walshe and The Associated Press contributed to this report.