The Democratic candidates continued their personal sniping Thursday, with Barack Obama accusing Hillary Clinton of playing rough at their debate the night before and leading the charge for critics who said the debate leaned too heavily on petty “gotcha games.”

The debate was the candidates’ final face-off ahead of Tuesday’s presidential primary in Pennsylvania, and Clinton tried to get mileage out of the recent campaign flaps surrounding Obama’s campaign. She criticized her opponent for his ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and onetime Weather Underground leader William Ayers, as well as for remarks Obama made saying Americans cling to guns and religion to express their frustration with Washington.

“I have to say Senator Clinton looked in her element … She was taking every opportunity to get a dig in there,” Obama said Thursday in Raleigh, N.C. “That’s her right. That’s her right to kind of twist the knife a little bit … that’s why she’s only airing negative attacks on TV in Pennsylvania like most places. I understand that because that’s the textbook Washington game.”

Click here to read more about Obama’s remarks on the debate.

Sparks flew so much at the Philadelphia debate, broadcast nationally on ABC, that media analysts questioned the motives of the debate moderators. Bloggers on the Huffington Post called it the worst debate ever. Others described the first Democratic debate in nearly two months as a “gotcha” confrontation.

“I will tell you it does not get much more fun than these debates,” Obama joked Thursday. “They are inspiring events. Last night I think we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people.”

Obama complained during the debate that he was fielding too many questions about gaffes and misstatements, while Clinton used the questions to jab at him.

She raised fresh questions about Obama’s refusal to break ties with Wright, whose angry sermons denouncing the U.S. and Israel were the talk of the campaign two weeks ago.

“It wasn’t only the specific remarks but some of the relationships with Reverend (Louis) Farrakhan, with giving the church bulletin over to the leader of Hamas, to put a message in. You know, these are problems. And they raise questions in people’s minds. And, so, this is a legitimate area,” she said.

Clinton also chided Obama again for his statement at a San Francisco fund-raiser that critics said belittled small-town America.

“People don’t cling to their traditions on hunting and guns” out of frustration with their government, Clinton said. She added that Obama had a fundamental misunderstanding on the role of religion and faith.

She has repeatedly called his remark about Americans being bitter over lost jobs elitist, and she ran a TV ad in Pennsylvania criticizing him for being out of touch.

Though Obama was on the defensive for much of the night, he offered sharp responses to Clinton’s attacks. His performance won him a Philadelphia Daily News endorsement on Thursday, and Time magazine writer Mark Halperin reported the Obama campaign was going to announce that three Pennsylvania superdelegates were switching from Clinton to Obama because of the negative tone of the debate.

But several analysts said it was a stronger performance for Clinton, and Clinton spokesman Phil Singer retorted Thursday that it is Obama who is leaning on character attacks, and that his new comments “are being driven by his need to cover up his awful performance last night.”

“We won’t be lectured by a candidate whose campaign has advanced one character attack after another against Senator Clinton, calling her ‘disingenuous,’ ‘divisive,’ ‘untruthful,’ ‘dishonest,’ and ‘polarizing,’” Singer said.

Clinton had her own problems with the debate. She took issue with a question on whether she would withdraw troops from Iraq even “if the military commanders in Iraq came to you on day one, and said, this kind of withdrawal would destabilize Iraq, it would set back all of the gains that we have made, no matter what.”

Clinton argued that’s an issue the Bush administration and the John McCain campaign would be pushing in the general election.

“How many of you watched the debate last night?” she asked the heavily female crowd at a town hall for working families at Haverford College in Pennsylvania Thursday. “You can see which way the questions are going. You know, ‘what if the military commanders tell you it’s dangerous to withdraw?’”

Flanked by her daughter Chelsea and her mother Dorothy Rodham, Clinton said, “that question is backwards. The president tells the military commanders what the mission is and what the policy is.”

Obama has a commanding lead in pledged delegates, but Clinton has consistently led in Pennsylvania polls. The state’s 158 pledged delegates constitute the biggest prize remaining on the primary calendar, and a wide victory for Clinton could help her in her quest to convince superdelegates she is the better candidate to go against John McCain in November.

The liberal activist group MoveOn, which is supporting Obama, released a statement Thursday saying it will run an ad protesting ABC’s handling of the debate if it gets 100,000 signatures on a petition.

“Debate moderators abuse the public trust every time they ask trivial questions about gaffes and ‘gotchas’ that only political insiders care about,” the petition said.

“Enough with the distractions — ABC and other networks must focus on issues that affect people’s daily lives.”

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who moderated the debate with Charlie Gibson, said Thursday that character questions matter to voters.

“We asked tough but appropriate questions,” Stephanopoulos told The Politico. “The vote for the president … is one of the most personal” decisions that someone makes.

Obama later told the North Carolina crowd that the debate was good practice for the general election.

“If the Republicans come at me, I will come right back at them. You know — I’ll be honest with you … I’ll be honest with you — it’s a little harder to do with a fellow Democrat because you know, I’m trying to, you know, show some restraint. You know I won’t have this much restraint with the Republicans.”

North Carolina holds its primary on May 6, as does Indiana, and another Democratic debate seems unlikely.

“I’ll be honest with you. We’ve now had 21,” Obama said of the debates. “It’s not as if we don’t know how to do these things. I could deliver Senator Clinton’s lines. I’m sure she could deliver mine.”

Later, taking a question from a 4th-grader who said he had been elected his class representative at school, Obama asked, “How many debates did you have to have?”

“None,” the boy replied.

“None! That sounds good!” Obama said.

FOX News’ Bonney Kapp and Aaron Bruns and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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