Iraq Is the Focus as Eight Democratic Rivals Clash

Democratic presidential candidates lined up before their debate. From left, Senator Chris Dodd, former Senator John Edwards, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

The three leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination attacked each other overtly and subtly Sunday over Iraq and their judgment, honesty and leadership in handling that war.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the front-runner in national polls, both drew fire and calmly returned it in the second nationally televised Democratic debate, arguing that the differences among the Democrats were minor compared with their differences with President Bush.

But former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina repeatedly went after Mrs. Clinton and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, accusing them of being followers in Congress — not leaders — in the effort to bring an end to the war.


“There are differences between us,” said Mr. Edwards, who has campaigned hard for the support of antiwar Democrats. “And I think Democratic voters deserve to know the differences between us. I think there is a difference between making very clear when the crucial moment comes, on Congress ending this war, what your position is, and standing quiet.”

Mr. Obama, for his part, noted that he opposed the war while still in the Illinois Senate in the fall of 2002, unlike Mr. Edwards, who voted to authorize the use of force but has since repudiated that vote. “The fact is that I opposed this war from the start,” Mr. Obama said to Mr. Edwards. “So you’re about four and a half years late on leadership on this issue.”


It was one of several striking exchanges — arguably the sharpest of the Democratic campaign — that highlighted the three-way nature of this race for the nomination. The eight Democratic candidates squared off on the campus of St. Anselm College here, just outside Manchester, in a state that has jealously protected its traditional position as the first primary in the nation.
Stagecraft heightened political reality, with CNN placing the three front-runners next to one another before tall lecterns for the first hour of the two-hour debate. Mrs. Clinton was in the center, a place she also sought to hug on the political spectrum.

Often, she seemed to be looking beyond the Democratic primary and toward the general election. On the war in particular, she seemed intent on focusing attention not on her initial vote to authorize the war and how her record on that issue compares with the records of her rivals for the nomination, but on the larger divide between the two parties.


“This is George Bush’s war,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And what we are trying to do, whether it’s by speaking out from the outside or working and casting votes that actually make a difference from the inside, we are trying to end the war.”.....