Voices Are Raised in Democratic Debate

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Clinton, Obama Clash at Debate

Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama engaged in an angry exchange Monday over past statements on Republican ideas and the words of former President Clinton in a presidential debate five days before the pivotal South Carolina primary.

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Monday's debate was co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute and was aired nationally on CNN. Wolf Blitzer served as moderator, with questions from CNN correspondents Joe Johns and Suzanne Malveaux.

Obama badly needs a victory in South Carolina after consecutive losses in New Hampshire and Nevada, and he will devote most of his campaign time this week to barnstorming the state.

Clinton, meanwhile, is scheduled to spend Tuesday and Wednesday campaigning in California, Arizona and New Mexico, all vital states in the Feb. 5 coast-to-coast mega-primary and all with significant Hispanic populations. Aides said Bill Clinton will cover for her in South Carolina on days when she is not in the state. He will spend much of his time wooing African American voters, who appear to be moving in large numbers to Obama.

The three candidates had spent the morning together in Columbia, S.C., attending a Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally on the steps of the state Capitol.

The rally drew supporters from all three camps, who cheered and waved placards as their candidates rose to speak. But the undercurrent was Obama's candidacy, viewed in deeply emotional terms across the South. One by one, local speakers addressed the potential gravity of this Saturday's primary. Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina NAACP, told the crowd: "You will determine the course of history for generations to come."

Clinton portrayed all three Democratic candidates -- a woman, an African American and a Southerner -- as groundbreaking figures. "That we stand here is a measure of Dr. King's life's work and his legacy," she said. Clinton singled out Obama for special praise, calling him "an extraordinary young African American man, with so much to contribute."

But at a King Day service Monday morning in Atlanta, the Clinton-Obama feud still simmered. At Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King had been co-pastor, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin spoke to a crowd of 2,000 that included Clinton's husband in a front pew. Franklin, an Obama supporter, said the country is on the "cusp of turning the impossible into reality."

"Yes, this is reality," she said, "not fantasy or fairy tales." Clinton had drawn fire for calling Obama's claim of consistent opposition to the Iraq war a "fairy tale" on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. According to news reports, when the crowd rose to cheer Franklin, Clinton remained seated, clapping politely.