Clinton, Obama step up attacks at S.C. debate

ByABC News
January 22, 2008, 1:05 AM

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- An animated, finger-pointing exchange between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama kicked off an emotional roller-coaster of a debate here Monday night that touched on his record, her husband and issues of race and gender.

Clinton and Obama drew audible gasps from an audience of 2,400 at this golf resort community's Palace Theater with a hammer-and-tongs opening salvo in which he accused her of distorting his record, she accused him of shifting positions and each attacked the other for having controversial associates.

At one point, former senator John Edwards, the third Democrat in the debate, sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus and CNN, reminded the audience, "There are three people in this debate, not two."

The candidates' meeting here on Martin Luther King Day came days before South Carolina Democrats vote in a Saturday primary, the first contest of the nominating season in which the black vote will be crucial. In the 2004 presidential primary here, 47% of the voters were African-American.

Obama reiterated his complaints that former president Bill Clinton was making statements about his record that were "not factually accurate" and accused the Clintons of double-teaming him on the campaign trail. "I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes," he said.

Edwards pressed Obama on why he voted present 130 times as an Illinois state senator and accused him of cherry-picking a handful of votes out of the hundreds he and Clinton cast in the Senate to criticize their records.

The most intense exchanges came between the two front-runners. Obama told Clinton he was working as a community organizer in a poor Chicago neighborhood while "you were on the corporate board of Wal-Mart." Clinton retorted that she was battling Republicans when "you were representing your contributor Rezko in his slum landlord business."

The reference was to Tony Rezko, a now-indicted Chicago political fixer who raised money for Obama and bought property with him.

By the end of the evening, the candidates came out from behind the lecterns to sit in a semicircle of chairs. They good-naturedly analyzed their arguments. "I especially appreciate that Hillary and John were giving me a tough time because that shows I'm doing pretty good," said Obama, who is leading in South Carolina polls.