Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama faced each other for the final Democratic debate before the March 4 primaries. More Photos >
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The audience watched Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama in a debate with a belligerent edge. More Photos »
Mr. Obama, pursuing a front-runner’s strategy of nonconfrontation after winning 11 straight contests, mostly defended his positions and views, though he said he and his team had not “whined” about the Clinton camp’s attacks on him. Sitting a couple of feet from Mrs. Clinton at a circular table, he appeared to listen intently to her attacks before responding in even tones.
The debate — the 20th for Democrats — was the final one before the March 4 contests in Ohio and Texas, states that the Clinton camp has labeled as must-win if she is to keep her campaign alive.
Questions about which approach Mrs. Clinton would take to sway voters were quickly answered as she immediately confronted Mr. Obama, and she was relentless throughout the meeting. She insisted on responding to virtually every point that he made — often interrupting the debate moderators, Brian Williams and Tim Russert of NBC, as they tried to move on.
At the same time, it was one of the most detailed and specific of all the debates, with both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama giving long explanations of their records and views.
Unlike their debate last Thursday, a more cordial affair that ended with Mrs. Clinton saying she was “honored” to share the stage with Mr. Obama, this exchange had a belligerent edge. Mrs. Clinton did not nod along as Mr. Obama made standard Democratic points, as she has been known to do. She was more apt to call him “Senator Obama” than the friendlier “Barack.” She did not smile at him.
At one point, after the moderators asked her a series of pointed questions, Mrs. Clinton even vented her long-simmering frustrations with news coverage of Mr. Obama, citing a “Saturday Night Live” sketch from last weekend that portrayed debate moderators as fawning fans of Mr. Obama.
“Can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time?” Mrs. Clinton said, to a mix of boos and applause. “I do find it curious, and if anybody saw ‘Saturday Night Live,’ you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.”
(In fact, in their two other one-on-one debates, Mrs. Clinton was asked to answer the first question and then was asked more questions over all.)
The tenor of the debate was set from the beginning, when the moderators played clips of Mrs. Clinton praising Mr. Obama at the debate last Thursday and then declaring “Shame on you, Barack Obama” on Saturday, after his campaign sent fliers to voters in Ohio suggesting that she viewed the North American Free Trade Agreement as a boon.
Nafta is hugely unpopular in Ohio, and the two candidates have records of both praising and criticizing it, though Mrs. Clinton never used the word “boon.” In some of her strongest language to date, she said at the debate that she would “opt out” of the trade pact if Canada and Mexico did not renegotiate it.
Saying Mr. Obama had sent out mailings that were “very disturbing to me,” Mrs. Clinton defended her newly aggressive tone — a posture that advisers have encouraged in recent days as she faces increasingly tighter races in both Ohio and Texas. (Rhode Island and Vermont also vote Tuesday.) “I think it’s important that you stand up for yourself,” Mrs. Clinton said about her broadsides against Mr. Obama.
Mr. Obama denied misleading voters through the Nafta flier or another one about her health care plan’s mandate that would require all Americans to buy insurance.
Mrs. Clinton criticized the health care flier, taking a strong swipe at Mr. Obama.
“What I find regrettable is that in Senator Obama’s mailing that he has sent out across Ohio,” she said “it is almost as though the health insurance companies and the Republicans wrote it.”
Mr. Obama responded energetically to the accusation, and for 16 minutes they engaged in a terse back-and-forth over the now-familiar specifics of their health plans.
Their respective plans are quite similar; they both seek to make health insurance more affordable, and both have universal coverage as their goal. But the Clinton campaign has argued that 15 million Americans would go uncovered under Mr. Obama’s plan, a number that relies on estimates by health care experts but is difficult to pin down depending on how a plan is devised.
“Senator Clinton, her campaign at least, has constantly sent out negative attacks on us,” Mr. Obama said. “We haven’t whined about it.”
As Mrs. Clinton attacked, she also sought to appeal to Democratic primary voters by placing herself in a pantheon of party leaders who fought for blue-collar and working-class Americans, two groups whose votes she is relying on next Tuesday.
Defending her support for a health insurance mandate, she said that, without one, “it would be as though Franklin Roosevelt said let’s make Social Security voluntary” or “if President Johnson said let’s make Medicare voluntary.”
Mrs. Clinton stared steadily at Mr. Obama with pursed lips and a furrowed brow — sometimes shaking her head energetically or issuing withering looks — as he answered questions. She spoke forcefully at every turn, as she did while arguing that she was the strongest Democrat to face the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
“I will have a much better case to make on a range of the issues that, really, America must confront going forward,” Mrs. Clinton said, “and will be able to hold my own and make the case for a change in policy that will be better for our country.”
Mr. Obama rested his chin on his hands and smiled as Mrs. Clinton criticized him on his experience in foreign policy and said their views on Iraq had been virtually identical in the Senate. When she finished speaking, Mr. Obama began a stern criticism of her record on Iraq and her own judgment calls.
“Senator Clinton often says that she is ready on Day 1, but in fact she was ready to give in to George Bush on Day 1 on this critical issue,” Mr. Obama said about the Iraq war. “So the same person that she criticizes for having terrible judgment — and we can’t afford to have another one of those — in fact she facilitated and enabled this individual to make a decision that has been strategically damaging to the United States of America.”
The first half-hour of the debate, which was held at Cleveland State University and broadcast by MSNBC and Ohio networks, focused heavily on tactics, with Mrs. Clinton on the defensive. For instance, she said she did not believe that her campaign was responsible for distributing a photograph of Mr. Obama wearing a robe and a white turban in a 2006 trip to Africa. The image surfaced Monday on The Drudge Report.
“I certainly know nothing about it,” Mrs. Clinton said. “That’s not the kind of behavior that I condone.”
The two candidates prepared intensively in private for the debate. Mrs. Clinton spent time off the trail Monday prepping in Washington, and Mr. Obama held only one public event Tuesday — an endorsement event with Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, one of the original eight Democrats who sought their party’s nomination this year and the first to endorse a former rival.
While Mr. Dodd did not explicitly ask Mrs. Clinton to drop out of the race, he said he did not want the campaign to become “divisive,” adding, “Now is the hour to come together.”
As the debate drew to a close, Mr. Obama was asked whether he would reject the support of Louis Farrakhan, the longtime leader of the Nation of Islam, who announced last weekend that he would back Mr. Obama’s presidential bid.
“I obviously can’t censor him,” Mr. Obama said. “It is not support that I sought.”
Asked why he had taken steps to back away from his pledge to accept public financing in a general election, Mr. Obama said he had yet to make up his mind and would sit down with Mr. McCain “to make sure we have a system that is fair for both sides.”
Yet he left open the door to not taking public financing, a departure from a statement he made a year ago.
Asked about a $5 million loan Mrs. Clinton made to her campaign in late January to keep it afloat, she dismissed suggestions that outside groups — or foreign concerns that have paid her husband for speeches — were financing her campaign.
“The American people who support me are bankrolling my campaign — that’s obvious,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding that she intended to release her tax returns at some point.
Asked if she would do it before the contests on Tuesday, she demurred, “I’m a little busy right now.”
The debate closed with a far less contentious air than it began with. When the 90-minute clock rang, Mr. Obama reached over and offered the first handshake, which Mrs. Clinton heartily accepted.
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