I hope many of you were able to catch the debate between Democratic presidential candidates Clinton and Obama Tuesday night at Cleveland State University. I watched the Texas debate last week and enjoyed it, but this particular debate really held my interest. I think Tim Russert and Brian Williams put forth challenging questions to both candidates. The fact that the candidates debated the future of the U.S. healthcare system for the first 16 minutes should be applauded.

In my opinion, healthcare is the most serious issue facing our country besides the war in Iraq. Obama continued to emphasize that his proposed healthcare plan is 95% similar to Clinton’s plan. The main difference, he says, is that under his plan everyone will be able to afford healthcare, but they will not be “forced” to purchase health insurance. Clinton’s plan, Obama claims, could result in the entire country facing a similar situation to Massachusetts, where those who refused to buy health insurance because they could not afford it, were in turn fined for not purchasing the insurance, thereby putting them in an even worse situation. I currently do not know enough about the logistics of Clinton and Obama’s healthcare plans to have an opinion on which one is better, but I’m very pleased to see that this issue is at the forefront of our national debates. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." I will be dedicating a future blog post to the future of our country’s health care system.

The rest of the debate was very stimulating and entertaining. I think Senator Obama definitely had the upper hand throughout the debate, in part due to his eloquent speaking skills. At one point, Senator Clinton called out Obama for not explicitly saying whether he rejects Louis Farrakhan’s support. Obama said he “denounces” Farrakhan’s support, and Clinton asked why he cannot go further and say that he “rejects” the support. Obama turned around and said that if Clinton wants to argue about semantics, then he both denounces and rejects Farrakhan. This got a big laugh from the audience and demonstrated Obama’s ability to effectively use his opponent’s attacks against her. I think this strength coupled with Obama’s superb speech writing and delivery has been crucial in his ability to garner support.

Perhaps Obama’s best moment in Tuesday night’s debate was how he responded when questioned about his lack of experience compared to Senator Clinton. He brought up the fact that he had the foresight to oppose the war in Iraq from the beginning (even with his lack of experience), whereas Clinton (with all of her experience), originally supported going into Iraq. Obama said that although both he and Clinton would now like to get the “bus out of the ditch,” he at least had the better judgment to not drive the bus into the ditch in the first place.

I enjoyed Tuesday night’s debate and I’m in favor of either of these candidates over John McCain. It’s hard to say at this point who will make a better Commander in Chief, but I do like the fresh perspective Obama wants to bring to the White House and his desire to change the fundamental ways in which politics are handled in the U.S.