AUSTIN, Texas -- Barack Obama gave a vigorous defense of his candidacy in a televised debate last night, rebutting Hillary Clinton's recent claim that it is time to "get real" about picking the next president.
The Illinois senator said her charge implied that his supporters were "being duped and eventually they're going to see the reality of things."
Instead, said Obama, his backers want to "stop the endless bickering" in Washington. In a jab at the New York senator, he added, "People understand that it is not just a matter of putting forward policy positions."
Clinton's best moment came at the end of the 90-minute encounter, when she and Obama shook hands after she said she was "absolutely honored" to be competing with him for the presidency, a remark that seemed to acknowledge that her struggling candidacy is approaching a critical moment.
Regardless of who wins the nomination, Clinton said, "we're going to be fine. ... I just hope we'll be able to say the same about the American people, and that's what this election should be about."
Her remark brought the partisan audience on the University of Texas campus to its feet, applauding.
The same crowd reacted with scattered boos when Clinton repeated her argument that Obama had plagiarized lines from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick in his speeches.
"You know, lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox," she said.
"Come on," Obama interjected.
"Barack, it is," she replied.
Obama called that attack part of the "silly season" in politics that turns off voters from politics.
It was also the sharpest exchange in what was a largely substantive and serious debate that pointed up the lack of major differences between the candidates on most issues.
They outlined identical views on issues such as immigration, economics and whether the United States should be a bilingual nation (both said that Americans need to learn more foreign languages, but neither backed the idea).
On U.S. policy toward Cuba, now that Fidel Castro has relinquished the presidency, Obama refined a position from an early campaign debate, after he was asked whether he would meet Castro's brother Raul without preconditions.
"I would meet without preconditions," he said, then appeared to outline a series of preconditions. "Senator Clinton is right that there has to be preparation. It is very important for us to make sure that there was an agenda, and on that agenda was human rights, releasing of political prisoners, opening up the press. And that preparation might take some time."
They also repeated many of their arguments on an issue over which they do disagree: how to achieve universal health care.
The positive tone of the evening was reflected in Clinton's refusal to repeat her recent claim that Obama wasn't ready to be commander-in-chief, after one of the questioners, Jorge Ramos of Univision, invited her to do so. The Spanish-language network carried a translated version of the debate last night, originally carried by CNN, in recognition of the state's large Hispanic electorate.
Heading into last night's debate, the focus was on Clinton and her need to change the direction of a race that has turned increasingly in Obama's direction. Clinton supporters, led by her husband, have said she must win the primaries in Texas and Ohio, a week from Tuesday, to keep her nomination hopes alive.
Obama has captured the past 11 contests and built a significant lead in pledged delegates. Yesterday, he was declared the winner of balloting among Democrats living overseas, who have 11 delegate votes at the national convention in Denver at the end of August.
Momentum from his recent victories, including Wisconsin and Hawaii this week, has put Obama in a position to challenge Clinton in both Ohio and Texas, where she held double-digit leads.
Recent polling showed Clinton and Obama in a statistical dead heat in Texas. In Ohio, she leads by 50 percent to 43 percent, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post survey released last night.
Bill Clinton, during a campaign stop for his wife in east Texas this week, said that if she loses Ohio and Texas, she probably can't win the nomination.
"If she wins Texas and Ohio, I think she'll be the nominee," he told her supporters in Beaumont, Texas. "If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be."
By some counts, last night's debate was the 19th of the Democratic campaign. It was just the second, however, featuring Obama and Clinton only.
An earlier head-to-head encounter, in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, struck few sparks. At the time, Clinton held a narrow advantage in the nomination race.
They fought to a draw the following week, when 22 states held Democratic primaries or caucuses. Since then, Obama has begun to pull away in the delegate contest.
Obama aides, and many independent strategists, have said that Clinton is unlikely to overtake him in pledged delegates within the remainder of the primary season, which ends in early June.
Clinton's campaign doesn't dispute that calculation, but her strategists say that the party's superdelegates should throw their support to her because she would be the party's strongest candidate against John McCain in November.
Clinton had pushed for a debate with Obama before Tuesday's primary in Wisconsin but Obama declined. After she lost that state by 17 percentage points, Clinton aides cited the absence of a debate as one of the factors in her defeat.
paul.west@baltsun.com