On Feb 26, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton will meet again to debate. The Ohio debate will be held at the Cleveland State University 9-10:30 PM ET. NBC's Brian Williams will moderate along with Tim Russert.
This debate is especially important to Hillary Clinton because her campaign is losing momentum after ten straight losses to Barack Obama. Even though she won delegate rich states like New York and California, she is now trailing Obama on the delegate count. Analysts say that Clinton has to win Texas and Ohio if she hopes to stay in the race, even Bill Clinton reiterated their sentiments during a rally last week.
During last week's debate at Texas, Hillary Clinton appeared to be a little conciliatory towards Obama, except the one incident when she chided him for “lifting” paragraphs from Daval Patrick's speech. She was booed by the audience then. For those who were expecting to see Hillary Clinton take off the gloves and attack Obama seriously, it was a confusing night. But the Ohio debate could bring out more fireworks after Clinton's severely criticized Obama for his campaign mailings in Ohio.
According to MSNBC, Clinton claims that Obama's mailings misrepresent her position on NAFTA and health care. She said that Obama's tactics is more like Karl Rove's operations.
The Ohio debate is just a week before the all important primary in Ohio and Teaxs. Looking at the change in Hillary Clinton's approach to Obama-she is now more willing to attack him without being afraid of being labeled-we can expect a debate more like the one between John McCain and Mitt Romney where the candidates went after each other.
One issue of contention is likely to be their standing on universal health care. Although both support universal health care, Hillary Clinton's plan mandates universal coverage while Obama's plan has voluntary sign up. Then there is the issue of trade agreements and outsourcing. Ohio has lost jobs due to companies sending their production facilities abroad and the middle class in the state is seriously concerned about their job security and state of the economy.
Immigration could also be a flashpoint but is more likely to be out debated by the economy, jobs and health care. Foreign policy, Iraq, terrorism-like immigration-would likely be overshadowed.
