Neither Clinton nor Obama score 'knockout'

Last night’s debate, the 20th of the Democratic contest so far, was the last before next week’s crucial contests in Texas and Ohio.

Former president Bill Clinton has even said publicly his wife probably needs to win both of them on March 4 if she is to win the nomination.

The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Ohio’s largest newspaper, called the debate a “tense encounter” and added that Mrs Clinton “showed her frustration” in the “high stakes” battle.

Writing in the Washington Post’s political blog The Fix, Chris Cillizza said neither candidate “scored a knockout or even a knockdown”.

“Clinton dominated much of the debate – for good or bad,” he said.

“She repeatedly sought to take the fight to Obama...But Obama successfully parried most of Clinton’s offence and even turned some of her aggressiveness against her.”

For the Los Angeles Times, the debate was a “nudge match” which saw each candidate “trying to push the other off balance, but neither of them struck knockout blows”.

Stephen Braun wrote: “It was billed as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s last chance to revive her flagging campaign, and she gave it her best shot.

“Yet judging from Obama’s unruffled composure and measured responses through much of the debate, that moment of truth never came.”

The Caucus, the New York Times’ political blog, noted it was a “debate of several strong, sharp moments that may not have added up to a game-changer for Mrs Clinton but it gave her a chance to get back to basics”.

Charles Hurt, the Washington DC bureau chief of the New York Post, thought the debate was more decisive.

“Presidential Obama the winner of key debate”, ran the headline.

“Devoid of any real fireworks, last night’s debate was a victory for Barack Obama,” he wrote.

“Obama was confident, gracious and even presidential... He’s starting to give off that White House vibe.”

He went on: “At times during the debate, Obama even seemed as if he were running in the general election and appealing to voters far beyond the borders of the Democratic Party.”

In the debate itself, the senators from New York and Illinois clashed over negative campaign tactics, the Iraq war, and US trade agreements in the 90-minute televised debate at Cleveland State University in Ohio.

Within minutes of the start, negative campaigning came to the fore as the two rivals politely but firmly accused each other of spreading misinformation about the other’s policies.

Mrs Clinton said the Obama campaign’s fliers had been “very disturbing to me” while Mr Obama replied that her campaign had “constantly sent out negative attacks on us...We haven’t whined about it because I understand that’s the nature of these campaigns.”

During a 16-minute debate on healthcare, the accusations continued.

“Senator Obama has consistently said I would force people to have health care whether they can afford it or not,” Mrs Clinton said.

She insisted this was not true, but Mr Obama added that the New York senator had consistently claimed his plan “would leave 15 million people out...I dispute that. I think it is inaccurate.”

As the pair came face-to-face for the second debate in a week, Mrs Clinton said as far as she knew her campaign had nothing to do with circulating a photograph of Mr Obama wearing a white turban and a wraparound white robe presented to him by elders in Wajir, in north-eastern Kenya, his father’s homeland.

Mr Obama replied: “I take Senator Clinton at her word that she knew nothing about the photo,” and moved on.

On the war, both candidates denounced President George Bush’s record on Iraq, then restated their long-held positions as Mr Obama again highlighted the fact Mrs Clinton originally voted to authorise the war in 2002.

“The fact is that Senator Clinton often says that she is ready on day one, but, in fact, she was ready to give in to George Bush on day one on this critical issue,” he said.

Mrs Clinton came across as being petty as she tried to get her ailing campaign back on track, in one instance by complaining about “always” being asked questions first in debates.

Mr Obama also used the debate to denounce remarks made by Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, a controversial Chicago-based former leader of the black Muslim group, who has made numerous anti-Semitic comments in the past and endorsed Mr Obama before the debate.

Mrs Clinton interjected and said denouncing support was not the same as rejecting it, to which Mr Obama responded that he did not see the difference, but added: “I happily concede the point and I would reject and denounce.”

The audience applauded.

The two rivals have clashed frequently over the last week on the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) between the US, Canada and Mexico, and the arguments continued in the MSNBC debate.

Mr Obama said Mrs Clinton had tried to have it both ways – touting the trade deal in farm states where it is popular, but finding fault with it in places like Ohio – while he had been consistent in his opposition.

But neither one said they were ready to withdraw from the agreement, even though they said they would use the threat of withdrawal to pressure Mexico to make changes.