Obama, Edwards blast Clinton during debate

The two men accused
Clinton of not giving straight answers.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Under pressure in a feisty campaign debate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday night the American people “know where I stand” and accused her rivals of distorting her record and slinging mud “right out of the Republican playbook.”

“There’s nothing personal about this,” countered former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who joined Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in bluntly accusing Clinton of constantly switching positions on Social Security, driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and other issues.

“What the American people are looking for right now is straight answers to tough questions, and that is not what we have seen from Senator Clinton on a host of issues,” added Obama.

The three-way confrontation reduced the other Democratic presidential hopefuls on the debate stage to the uncomfortable role of spectator yet it perfectly captured the race for the party’s nomination seven weeks before the kickoff Iowa caucuses.

Clinton leads in the nationwide polls, but recent surveys in Iowa show she, Obama and Edwards are in a virtual dead heat.

Obama was the first to challenge Clinton, saying it took two weeks to “get a clear answer” on whether she supports or opposes issuing driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. “The same is true on Social Security,” he said.

For the first time in a debate since the campaign began, Clinton swiftly answered in kind. “When it came time to step up and decide whether or not he would support universal health-care coverage he chose not to do that,” she said of Obama. She added his plan would leave 15 million people without coverage — the population of Iowa and three other early voting states in the nominating campaign.

Edwards was next to accuse Clinton of trying to have it both ways — with the war in Iraq, Social Security and defining the scope of President Bush’s power to use military force against Iran. “She says she will bring change to Washington while she continues to defend a system that does not work, that is broken, that is rigged, that is corrupt,” added the former North Carolina senator.