EDITORIAL - On a snowy evening in Cleveland, Ohio, Illinois Senator Barack Obama and New York Senator Hillary Clinton debated over the merits of enlarging the federal government to monstrous proportions, starting with an unusually long 16-minute discussion about health care.

The debate quickly turned nasty as Clinton and Obama bickered over their health care proposals, talking over MSNBC moderator Brian Williams on several occasions. The senators argued over the specific mandates that their plans included, whom the plan would cover and how many people would be “left out”.

“And Senator Obama's plan does not cover everyone. It would leave, give or take, 15 million people out,” Clinton said.

Obama responded a few minutes later, saying, “The reason she thinks that there are more people covered under her plan than mine is because of a mandate. That is not a mandate for the government to provide coverage to everybody; it is a mandate that every individual purchase health care.”

“Now, Senator Clinton has not indicated how she would enforce this mandate. She hasn't indicated what level of subsidy she would provide to assure that it was, in fact, affordable. And so it is entirely legitimate for us to point out these differences,” Obama continued.

Clinton barked back, making light of the mandate that exists within Obama's plan. “Senator Obama has a mandate in his plan. It's a mandate on parents to provide health insurance for their children. That's about 150 million people who would be required to do that. The difference between Senator Obama and myself is that I know, from the work I've done on health care for many years, that if everyone's not in the system we will continue to let the insurance companies do what's called cherry picking -- pick those who get insurance and leave others out.”

Obama later conceded the point over the inclusion of a mandate in his plan, admitting his plan requires parents to purchase health coverage for their children.

No mention, unfortunately, of the cost of these health care proposals. Neither candidate volunteered that information and neither MSNBC moderator asked the candidates about that pesky issue.

From the beginning of the debate, Clinton came out swinging - clearly aware of her diminishing chances at taking the nomination away from the well-spoken and charismatic senator from Illinois. Early in the debate, Clinton made a remark about a Saturday Night Live skit that aired last weekend, which poked fun at the media's apparent infatuation with Obama, asking if perhaps Obama needs another pillow. That comment drew uneasy boos from the audience.

"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," she said.

The remainder of the debate focused on issues like the War in Iraq, jobs, free trade and NAFTA and Farrakhan's endorsement of the Barack Obama campaign, which Obama tried to distance himself from the best he could.

Tim Russert asked Senator Clinton about her pledge to add 5 million jobs over the next 10 years if elected president and mentioned her earlier senatorial promise to add 200,000 for upstate New York, which ultimately turned into a net loss of more than 30,000 jobs. Clinton blamed the 2000 elections for her inability to add any jobs to upstate New York, claiming that she had banked on an Al Gore presidency at the time and a Democratic administration. “... I was counting on having a Democratic White House, a Democratic president who shared my values about what we needed to do to make the economy work for everyone and to create shared prosperity.”

“And as you know, despite the difficulties of the Bush administration and a Republican Congress for six years of my first term I have worked very hard to create jobs but obviously as president I will have a lot more tools at my disposal,” she added.

Brian Williams then turned to Obama and asked how he responds to the issue of experience and his relative youth compared to his opponent. “Well, Senator Clinton I think equates experience with longevity in Washington. I don't think the American people do and I don't think that if you look at the judgments that we've made over the last several years that that's the accurate measure.”

“On the most important foreign policy decision that we face in a generation -- whether or not to go into Iraq -- I was very clear as to why we should not -- that it would fan the flames of anti-American sentiment -- that it would distract us from Afghanistan -- that it would cost us billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and would not make us more safe, and I do not believe it has made us more safe”, he added.

Unfortunately, taxation did not come up in the debate, along with other strange absences on important issues like immigration and the government's out-of-control deficits. Some estimates put Obama's total proposed government spending at more than $800 billion over the current federal budget. The means to pay for that spending remains an unknown, and apparently, not a big deal to the mainstream media.