Candidates go on the attack in Ohio showdown

CLEVELAND - Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois came under a full-out assault Tuesday night from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in their last debate before crucial primaries in Ohio and Texas that could make or break Clinton’s campaign.

Clinton has heatedly attacked Obama in the past week, accusing him of distorting her record on trade and health care in mass mailings to Ohio voters, and she stayed on the attack Tuesday night.

“I have a great deal of respect for Senator Obama, but we have differences, and in the last several days, some of those differences in tactics and choices that Senator Obama’s campaign has made ... have been very disturbing to me,” she said at the outset of the debate.

Obama did not back down. He said that he had faced the same tactics from Clinton’s supporters but that “we haven’t whined about it because I understand that’s the nature of these campaigns.”

Brian Williams, anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” and Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief, moderated the debate, which MSNBC telecast from Cleveland State University.

Dispute over details of health care plan
The flashpoint was a pair of mailings from the Obama campaign to Ohio voters that Clinton said unfairly depicted her positions on health care coverage and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Clinton objected to Obama’s accusation that she advocated measures to force all Americans to purchase health care coverage. Obama repeated the charge in the first exchange of the debate Tuesday, describing her position as a “mandate” to buy coverage.

“It’s been unfortunate that Senator Obama has consistently said that I would force people to have health care [coverage] whether they can afford it or not,” she said. “We should have a good debate that uses good information, not false, misleading and inaccurate information.”

Video   Clinton, Obama debate in Ohio Feb. 27: How did Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama do on their final debate before key primary votes on March 4? NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports. Today show

Clinton said her proposal would not force low-income Americans into poverty by compelling them to pay for full health care coverage. She said it included surplus funding to subsidize coverage for families that could not afford it.

Clinton goes on trade offensive
The other Obama mailing accused Clinton of supporting NAFTA, which her husband, former President Bill Clinton, championed as president. That agreement and similar trade treaties are extremely unpopular in Ohio, which has suffered an exodus of blue-collar jobs to other countries, in part because of such pacts.

At a rally Saturday in Cincinnati, Clinton foreshadowed the importance of trade issues in the debate, saying: “Shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public.”

Clinton said Tuesday night that she had always opposed NAFTA, which Obama said was news to him. He pointed out that she praised the deal as good for New York during her senatorial campaign.

Obama has said NAFTA should be renegotiated, a position he repeated Tuesday night, and he said he welcomed what he characterized as Clinton’s change of mind.

“I will make sure that we will renegotiate,” Obama said. “I think Senator Clinton’s answer on this one is right.”

Trade a delicate issue in Ohio, Texas
For Clinton, the issue is a delicate one. While NAFTA is considered a scourge in much of Ohio, it has been seen as a success in many parts of Texas, especially in southern areas of the state along the Mexican border, where Clinton has sought to mine significant support from Latino voters who have been a bedrock constituency.

While she has criticized NAFTA in Ohio, Clinton has made more nuanced statements in Texas, saying she intends to fine-tune the agreement to limit its downside.

In an an interview Monday with NBC affiliate KRIS of Corpus Christi, Clinton said NAFTA had “helped a lot of people” in Texas while hurting workers in some other parts of the country.

“We’ve got to take a hard look at it,” she said. “We’ve got to have a better-balanced approach so we get the advantages out of increased trade without undermining the American middle class and leading to the loss of jobs.”

The tone settled down thereafter, flaring only briefly when Obama said he “denounced” Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam for his long history of anti-Semitic statements but hesitated to “reject” Farrakhan’s support. Clinton said Obama needed to take a stronger stand.

“If Senator Clinton feels that ‘reject’ is stronger than the word ‘denounce,’ then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce” Farrakhan’s support, Obama said to scattered laughter in the hall.

Obama has been conducting a behind-the scenes offensive against Farrakhan and his endorsement. Obama met privately over the weekend in Toldeo, Ohio, with Jewish leaders, whom he sought to reassure over his support for Israel, NBC’s Aswini Anburajan reported Tuesday night.

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