Ah, too bad. Fireworks. Clinton, Obama dislike boils over at debate.
Jan 21 11:20 PM US/Eastern
Personal antipathy and pent-up anger boiled over as Democratic foes Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama accused each other of twisting the truth, in a fiery 2008 campaign debate Monday.
The two senators stared one another down, gesticulated and constantly interrupted one another, flinging accusations and counter-charges at a vital stage of their quests for the White House.
Obama, the Illinois senator striving to be the United States' first black president, also lashed out at former president Bill Clinton, who is mounting a vociferous campaign on behalf of his wife.
"I can't tell who I am running against sometimes," said Obama, for whom Saturday's South Carolina primary, the next round of the 2008 nominating marathon is a must-win after two victories in a row by Clinton.
Obama all but accused the Clintons of lying about his opposition to the Iraq war and a comment he made that the Republicans had latterly been the party of ideas, and what was painted as praise for Republican icon Ronald Reagan.
"There's a set of assertions made by Senator Clinton, as well as her husband, that are not factually accurate," Obama said.
Clinton rapped Obama over his opposition to the Iraq war, which she voted to authorize in 2002, saying he had not been consistent when the conflict had appeared to be going well.
"You gave a great speech in 2002 opposing the war in Iraq," the former first lady said.
"By the next year, you were telling reporters that you agreed with President Bush in his conduct of the war. And by the next year, when you were in the Senate, you were voting to fund the war time after time after time."
As the third major Democratic candidate John Edwards struggled to get a word in, Clinton accused Obama of not being ready to take the fire of a debate at the top level of US politics, saying she had been taking Republican attacks for years.
"Senator Obama, it is very difficult having a straight up debate with you because you never take responsibility for any vote," she said, accusing him of dodging tough votes while an Illinois state legislator.
"It's very difficult to get a straight answer."
On the national holiday commemorating the birth of civil rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr., the two senators earlier joined thousands of people -- mostly black -- for a procession and rally in the South Carolina capital.
The Republicans meanwhile were campaigning full-bore in Florida, which on January 29 will stage a four-way fight between new front-runner John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani.
At the rally at the statehouse in the state capital Columbia, Obama vied to inherit King's role as inspirer-in-chief for a troubled nation -- and took a coded shot at Hillary Clinton, who was booed by isolated hecklers in the crowd.
"We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing each other down. We don't need a politics of fear in this country, we all need a politics of hope. That is what Dr King's message is about," he said.
The former first lady, who met King as a teenager in Chicago seven years before he was gunned down in 1968, paid tribute to Obama as an "extraordinary young African-American man."
But she said that her bid to be America's first woman president was also testament to King's uplifting legacy, and signaled that experience was needed to translate dreams into reality.
"Now, we know, even as we take this moment of joy and celebration, that the work is far from finished, the dream is nowhere fulfilled," she said.
Most polls give Iowa winner Obama a double-digit lead over the New York senator in South Carolina, which has a sizeable black community.
Clinton is heading out to California, Arizona and New Mexico on Tuesday, but her campaign denied that was a sign of an attempt to diminish expectations, before a defeat in the primary on Saturday.
Among the Republicans, Senator McCain was on a high after besting former Arkansas governor Huckabee in Saturday's South Carolina primary.
Former New York mayor Giuliani, who has sat out the early rounds, now faces a do-or-die moment in Florida to regain lost momentum heading into Super Tuesday, when a number of states vote on February 5.
Florida polls suggest a dead heat between McCain, Giuliani, Huckabee and former Massachusetts governor Romney.
Even on his home turf in New York, one of the Super Tuesday states, Giuliani has lost his commanding poll lead and now trails McCain by 12 points, according to the Siena Research Institute.
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