Obama and Clinton Clash Over Issue in the Ohio Debate

U.S. Democratic presidential contenders hold last debate before key contests

www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-27 14:41:34
·Obama and Clinton held their last debate Tuesday night in Cleveland, Ohio.
·The pair traded punches on healthcare, trade agreement, foreign policy, Iraq and other issues.
·Obama has narrowed the gap with Clinton to 6 percentage points in an Ohio poll.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) --

U.S. Democratic presidential contenders Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York held their last debate Tuesday night in Cleveland, Ohio, before crucial March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas that could make or break Clinton's campaign.
    The pair traded punches on healthcare, trade agreement, foreign policy, Iraq and other key issues.
    Clinton objected to Obama's accusation that she advocated measures to force all Americans to purchase healthcare coverage. Obama repeated the charge, describing her position as a "mandate" to buy coverage.
    Obama also accused Clinton of supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which her husband, former President Bill Clinton, championed when he was in office.
    That agreement is extremely unpopular in Ohio, which has suffered an exodus of blue-collar jobs.
    Clinton said she had always opposed NAFTA, which Obama said was news to him. He pointed out that Clinton praised the deal as good for New York during her senatorial campaign.

    The contenders also renewed their argument over who has the best judgment or whether experience in office matters more and exchanged some jabs.
    "He's to be commended for having given the speech" (in 2002) in opposition to going to war with Iraq," Clinton said of Obama. But she pointed out that after Obama entered the Senate in 2005, "we've voted the same. ... When it wasn't a speech, where it was action, where was the difference?"
    Obama responded that "my objection to the war in Iraq was not simply a speech."
    The debate was the last the pair held before March 4, when Rhode Island and Vermont will join Ohio and Texas to hold primaries.
    Obama has won the last 11 primaries or caucuses, leading Clinton in many national polls and edging slightly ahead in most news organizations' counts of delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
    The Clinton campaign team has consistently acknowledged that it must do well in Ohio and Texas, where she has enjoyed a wide lead in public opinion polls, to have a realistic shot at taking the nomination, but the latest surveys ahead of the debate were not promising.
    Obama has narrowed the gap with Clinton to 6 percentage points in an Ohio poll released Tuesday.
    He trailed by 9 points in the same poll last week and 17 points two weeks ago in a state that the Clinton campaign has long seen as a "firewall" against Obama's surging popularity.
    Obama's gains were even more dramatic in Texas, where he has overtaken Clinton in the past week, according to a Texas poll released Tuesday.

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