Feb. 26 Democratic debate transcript

Williams: And, Senator Clinton...

Sen. Clinton: So part of what we have to do here is recognize that the special interests are not going to give up without a fight. And I believe that I am a fighter, and I will fight for the people of Ohio and the people of America.

Williams: What I was attempting to do here is show something Senator Obama said about you, and I'm told it's ready...

Sen. Obama: But, Brian...

Williams: Let's try it. Hang on. Watch your monitor.

Sen. Obama: I think I'm going to have to respond to this.

Williams: Let's try it. We're going to come back to you.

Sen. Obama: ... herself as co-president during the Clinton years. Every good thing that happened she says she was a part of. And so the notion that you can selectively pick what you take credit for and then run away from what isn't politically convenient, that doesn't make sense.

Williams: Now, Senator Obama, you can react to whatever you wanted to react to from earlier, but I've been wanting to ask you about this assertion that Senator Clinton has somehow cast herself as co-president.

Sen. Obama: Well, I think what is absolutely true is that when Senator Clinton continually talks about her experience, she's including the eight years that she served as first lady and often says, "You know, here's what I did, here's what we did, here's what we accomplished," which is fine.

And I have not in any way said that that experience is not relevant, and I don't begrudge her claiming that as experience.

What I've said -- and what I would continue to maintain -- is you can't take credit for all the good things that happen but then, when it comes to issues like NAFTA, you say, "Well, behind the scenes, I was disagreeing."

That doesn't work. So you have to, I think, take both responsibility, as well as credit.
Now, there are several points that I think Senator Clinton made that we need to discuss here.
First of all, she talked about me objecting to caps on credit cards. Keep in mind, I objected to the entire bill, a bill that Senator Clinton, in its previous version in 2001, had voted for and at one of the debates with you guys said, well, I voted for it, but I hoped it wouldn't pass. Which, as a general rule, doesn't work. If you don't want it to pass, you vote against it.

You know, she mentioned that she is a fighter on health care, and, look, I do not in any way doubt that Senator Clinton genuinely wants to provide health care to all Americans. What I have said is that the way she approached it back in '93, I think, was wrong in part because she had had the view that what's required is simply to fight. And Senator Clinton ended up fighting not just the insurance companies and the drug companies, but also members of her own party.

And as a consequence, there were a number of people like Jim Cooper of Tennessee and Bill Bradley and Pat Moynihan, who were not included in the negotiations. And we had the potential of bringing people together to actually get something done.

I am absolutely clear that hope is not enough. And it is not going to be easy to pass health care. If it was, it would have already gotten done.

It's not going to be easy to have a sensible energy policy in this country. Exxon Mobil made $11 billion last quarter. They are not going to give up those profits easily.

But what I also believe is that the only way we are going to actually get this stuff done is, number one, we are going to have to mobilize and inspire the American people so that they're paying attention to what their government is doing. And that's what I've been doing in this campaign, and that's what I will do as president.

And there's nothing romantic or silly about that. If the American people are activated, that's how change is going to happen.

The second thing we're going to have to do is we're actually going to have to go after the special interests. Senator Clinton, in one of these speeches -- it may have been the same speech where you showed the clip -- said, you can't just wave a magic wand and expect special interests to go away.

That is absolutely true, but it doesn't help if you're taking millions of dollars of contributions from those special interests. They are less likely to go away.

So it is important for us to crack down on how these special interests are able to influence Congress. And, yes, it is important for us to inspire and mobilize and motivate the American people to get involved and pay attention.