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Clinton: White House is harder than debate

The former first lady  said Friday that if Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama thinks their last debate was tough, it's nothing compared to pressures in the White House.
Clinton Obama
Democratic presidential hopefuls Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., right, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., both say they were asked tough questions in Wednesday's Democratic debate in Philadelphia.Matt Rourke / AP
/ Source: The Associated Press

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that if Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama thinks their last debate was tough, it's nothing compared to pressures in the White House.

"Having been inside the White House, I know the pressures inside the White House, I know how hard it is every single day," Clinton told Philadelphia television station FOX 29. "When the going gets tough you can't run away."

Obama has complained that the debate Wednesday night moderated by ABC News focused on political divisions instead of issues that matter to Americans. Many of the toughest questions were targeted at Obama, the front-runner for the nomination.

"We were both asked some pretty tough questions and that's part of what happens in a debate and in a campaign, and I know he spent all day yesterday complaining about the hard questions he was asked," Clinton said, although Obama did not complain about the difficulty of the questions, just the substance.

"Being asked tough questions in a debate is nothing like the pressures you face inside the White House," she said, according to a transcript of her interview provided by her campaign.

The debate was the most watched of this election cycle and has generated some negative reviews for ABC. Obama supporters have made some of the loudest objections, and the Obama campaign sent out a fundraising appeal off the debate titled "Gotcha."

Obama said Thursday that the moderators "like stirring up controversy and they like playing gotcha games, getting us to attack each other."

"Senator Clinton looked in her element," Obama said. "She was taking every opportunity to get a dig in there. That's her right to kind of twist the knife a little bit ... that's the lesson she learned when Republicans did it to her in the 1990s."