“I know that within the next hour we’ll say that Bill Clinton walked on water,” the Rev. Al Sharpton joked.

The war continued to be a divisive issue as the candidates considered the size, if any, of a future U.S. commitment to the rebuilding of Iraq. Most sought to avoid committing whether or not they would pledge the $87 billion Bush has requested.

Only the most liberal candidates—Sharpton and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio—said they would send no money, and only Dean and Lieberman said they were willing to send the full $87 billion. The other six candidates hedged, conceding the need to send money and stressing the importance of supporting the troops while remaining skeptical of the hefty price tag.

While the contenders agreed on the necessity of rolling back the portions of the Bush tax cut targeted at the rich—accusing Bush of promulgating a “tax shift” that unfairly burdens lower and middle-class Americans—they differed on the merits of retaining parts of the plan aimed at the middle-class. Kerry defended middle-class tax breaks, joined by centrists Lieberman and Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., while Gephardt and Dean assailed keeping any part of the Bush tax plan.

“Washington politicians [promise] people everything,” Dean said. “Tell the truth—we cannot afford all of the tax cuts, the health insurance, special ed and balancing the budget, and we have to do those things.”

Trade policy proved one of the afternoon’s most controversial issues. Gephardt, the former house majority leader with deep support among unions, distanced himself from the crowd by trumpeting his record of opposing major trade agreements, emphasizing the importance of furthering “fair” trade rather than free trade. He expressed his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the extension of Permanent Normal Trade Relations to China.

“Most everybody here voted for NAFTA, voted for the China agreement,” he said. “I did not—I led the fight against it.”

Although most contenders reaffirmed their commitment to human rights, labor and environment provisions in future free trade agreements, that pledge plainly had different meanings for the various candidates.

For Kucinich, the inequity in such standards means his first act as president will be to withdraw from NAFTA and the WTO.

But the moderates criticized such policies as backwards, claiming it would undermine the goal of creating jobs and growing the economy.

“I’m not insensitive to the jobs, I’m desperately concerned about those jobs, but you don’t fix them by pandering to people and telling them you’re going to shut the door,” Kerry said. “Democrats can’t love jobs and hate the people who create them.”

On health care, the candidates identified what Clark called a “crisis” in a country with 41 million uninsured, but presented divergent plans for shoring up the nation’s health care system, ranging from Gephardt’s $228-billion-a-year program to fund employer-based insurance to more limited and less costly coverage proposals. They also tackled the issue of soaring prescription drug costs, with Graham, Lieberman and Kucinich backing drug reimportation plans and Sharpton and Dean warning congressional Democrats not to settle for the current compromise plan under consideration in Congress.

And on the topic of politics’ notorious third rail—social security—most of the Democrats declined to back private stock market investment as a solution to the system’s impending financial crunch. Only Clark expressed support for a private investment program, and even he insisted it must be in addition to, rather than instead of, the guaranteed solvency of the system in general.

Other Democrats underscored the importance of improving the economy and encouraging private saving in staving off a social security crisis. They all refused to back increasing the program’s eligibility age past the current 67.

“We have a train wreck coming…the onslaught of the baby boomers,” Edwards said. “What we ought to do is help people save.”