Clinton, Obama Debate Reaches Fever Pitch

By Jill Lawrence

CLEVELAND — The 20th and possibly final debate of the Democratic nomination campaign had Hillary Rodham Clinton on the defensive from the start, as co-moderator Brian Williams of NBC News asked about her angry attack on rival Barack Obama last weekend over mailers she said distorted her health care plan.

“This is a contested campaign,” Clinton said, and it’s important to let voters know where there are differences and distortions.

Obama answered that Clinton has used all kinds of negative mailings, ads and phone calls against him, and “we haven’t whined about it because I understand that’s the nature of these campaigns.”

Clinton replied that his mailing was worse because it wrongly said “I would force people to have health care whether they could afford it or not.”

On Obama’s mailing, she added: “It is almost as though the insurance companies and the Republicans wrote it.”

MSNBC billed it as the “do or die” debate, and that wasn’t too far off. Primaries March 4 in Texas and Ohio are crucial.

Clinton’s campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, said Tuesday that she needs to win both states to stay viable and start catching up to Obama in the delegate count.

“If she wins those, we then go on to April 22 in Pennsylvania. If we don’t, then she has to make a decision on what she’s going to do,” McAuliffe said in Madison, Wis., the Associated Press reported.

Both candidates emphasized economic growth plans in this state, where manufacturing is in decline and tens of thousands have lost jobs. Clinton has called for a timeout on trade agreements, while Obama is attacking her for once viewing as a success the North American Free Trade Agreement signed by her husband, former president Bill Clinton.

Clinton, of New York, has lost 11 contests in a row to Obama, of Illinois. He leads her in convention delegates, and polls show him erasing her big leads and in some cases building his own.

Obama climbed to double-digit national leads in USA TODAY/Gallup and New York Times/CBS polls released this week. In Texas, he led by 1 to 4 percentage points in three polls this week and was tied in a fourth. Clinton led by 4 to 8 points in the four latest polls of Ohio.

Clinton spent the last few days trying different methods of attack:

*In a foreign policy speech Monday in Washington, D.C., she tacitly compared Obama to President Bush, saying the nation couldn’t afford another president without foreign policy experience.

*On Sunday in Providence, R.I., she ridiculed Obama’s style. “Now I can stand up here and say, ‘Let’s just get everybody together, let’s get unified, the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect,’” Clinton said, adding she has “no illusions” about the difficulties awaiting the next president.

*On Saturday in Cincinnati, she delivered a sharp lecture. Waving Obama fliers, Clinton said he misrepresented her positions on trade and health care. “Shame on you, Barack Obama!” she declared.

Clinton allowed Tuesday in Lorain that “I got a little hot over the weekend in Cincinnati.” She added: “I don’t mind having a debate. I don’t mind airing our differences. But I really mind it when Sen. Obama’s campaign sends you literature in the mail that is false, misleading and has been discredited.”

Obama said at a news conference that “things have gotten a little hotter over the last couple of days.”

The news conference itself was a sign of Obama’s momentum. At the event, he was endorsed by Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, a former presidential candidate.

“I made a strong case on the basis of the experience, and look at the results I got,” said Dodd, who never got beyond single digits in national polls. He said what matters this year are “maturity, judgment, balance, the ability to speak in a way that touches people.”

Obama was closing in on his millionth donor as the debate began. According to a running total at his website, at 9 p.m. ET more than 991,200 people had contributed to his campaign. (c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.