Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama blamed each other for spreading false information about their respective health care plans Tuesday night in a high stakes debate one week before a quartet of primaries.

"Senator Obama has consistently said I would force people to have health care whether they can afford it or not," said Clinton, insisting it was not true.

Responding quickly, Obama countered that former first lady had consistently claimed his plan "would leave 15 million people out ... I dispute that. I think it is inaccurate," he said.

The tone was pointed yet polite in the early moments of the 90-minute encounter.

The two rivals, survivors of a grueling primary season, sat next to one another at a table on stage at Cleveland State University.

Clinton also said as far as she knew her campaign had nothing to do with circulating a photograph of Obama wearing a white turban and a wraparound white robe presented to him by elders in Wajir, in northeastern Kenya.

The gossip and news Web site The Drudge Report posted the photograph Monday and said, without substantiation, that it was being circulated by "Clinton staffers."

"We have no evidence where it came from," Clinton said, making clear that's not the kind of behavior she wants in her campaign.

"I take Senator Clinton at her word that she knew nothing about the photo," Obama said.

In one curious moment, Clinton said, "In the last several debates I seem to get the first question all the time. I don't mind. I'll be happy to field it. I just find it curious if anybody saw "Saturday Night Live," maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow."

In its episode last Saturday, the comedy show ran a feature portraying the news media as going easy on Obama, and questioner asking at one point if he was comfortable and needed another pillow.

Clinton angrily denounced Obama during the weekend for distorting her positions on health care and NAFTA and the debate moderator, Brian Williams of NBC News, showed a few seconds of her remarks.

Her comments at the debate table weren't nearly as angry, but no less insistent.

"The charges that Senator Obama's campaign has made regarding fliers and mailers and other information that he has been putting out about my health care plan and my position on NAFTA have been very disturbing to me," she said.

When it was his turn to speak, Obama said Clinton's campaign has "constantly sent out negative attacks on us ... We haven't whined about it because I understand that's the nature of these campaigns."

The two rivals also debated NAFTA, the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that is wildly unpopular with blue-collar workers whose votes are critical in any Democratic primary in Ohio.

Neither one said they were ready to withdraw from the agreement, although both said they would use the threat of withdrawal to pressure Mexico to make changes.

"I have said I would renegotiate NAFTA," said Clinton. "I will say to Mexico that we will opt out of NAFTA unless we renegotiate it."

Obama said Clinton has tried to have it both ways, touting the trade deal in farm states where it's popular while finding fault in places like Ohio.

"This is something I have been consistent about," said Obama, who said he went to the American Farm Bureau Federation to tout his opposition and used it as an issue in his 2004 Senate campaign.

"That conversation I had with the Farm Bureau, I was not ambivalent at all," said Obama.

The debate offered Clinton her last, best chance to slow Obama's drive toward the nomination. Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont hold primaries next Tuesday, with 370 delegates at shake.

Obama has won 11 straight primaries and caucuses, and even some of Clinton's supporters concede she must win in both Ohio and Texas to keep her candidacy alive.

"I think things have gotten a little hotter in the last couple of days," Obama said at a news conference earlier Tuesday where he collected an endorsement from a former campaign rival, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut.

Dodd's decision aside, there were other signs of Clinton's campaign woes.

A stream of party leaders has begun to move toward Obama, and an AP-Ipsos poll charted significant gains for him among male voters and others two months into the primary season.

In mid-January, Clinton held a seven-point lead among all men, a group she now loses by 25 points. The two were about even among college graduates six weeks ago, and Obama now holds a 20-point margin.

The former first lady's most reliable base of support continues to be older voters, women, and lower-income workers.

Clinton campaigned in Lorain, a blue-collar city went of Cleveland, several hours before the debate.

One man in the audience waved his arms and spoke emotionally about the legal struggles he has faced trying to hold onto his home.

"I can't help everybody, but I try," Clinton said, after listening calmly. "There are a lot of people who really need help. We can't treat each other like we are invisible."

Obama's only public appearance before the debate was the news conference with Dodd, who said it was time for Democrats to unite for the fall campaign. Dodd denied that was a nudge to Clinton to quit the race.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Glover and Tom Raum in Cleveland and M.R. Kropko in Lorain contributed to this report.


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Tue Feb 26, 9:39 PM ET