Well, the atmosphere at tonight’s Democratic debate at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio was certainly more heated than the previous debate in Texas.

And this time, it was Obama who did the back-patting come the close of the debate.

Obama praised Clinton as “an excellent campaigner” and said she would certainly be a better candidate than Sen. John McCain. After these statements, Obama went on to explain that he would be a better Presidential nominee because of his ability to “bring this country together in a unique way.”

Clinton acknowledged both her and Obama’s strong feelings towards “their country”, but went on to exclaim that she was “thrilled to be running to be the first woman President” and explain that her 35 years of experience would make her a President for the working class people.

Clinton exclaimed “I am a fighter,” sometimes defensively, sometimes passionately, throughout the debate.

Overall, the debate began with a 16-minute wrangle over health care, with an extremely tense Clinton mentioning her frustration over getting the first question in the debate.

The tone of the debate seemed to shift throughout the 90-minutes, with both candidates going from a back-and-forth battle over health care and defending comments they had previously made, to fielding questions ranging from NAFTA to how they will deal with an increasingly un-democratic Russia.

Both Clinton and Obama agreed that on the issue of NAFTA, they would deal with Canada and Mexico to re-negotiate, or would “opt-out.”

Clinton spoke first on the issue of Russia, explaining that the successor to Putin is a “hand-picked successor” by Putin, and that Putin would be the one still calling the shots. Obama agreed, stating that the Bush administration neglected relations with Russia, that “we did not send the signal to Putin that we were going to be serious with issues like human rights…”

Sen. Obama held his own against Clinton, reputing Clinton’s claims that he stated this past summer he would “bomb Pakistan” if needed.

Obama argued that “I never said I would bomb Pakistan. What I said was if we have actionable intelligence against bin Laden and other individuals … and Pakistan is unwilling or unable … we should (act). … Several days ago, this administration did exactly that.”

When questioned on his stance on the endorsement from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who in the past has made hate-filled statements against the Jewish community in particular, Obama said he “denounced” the endorsement. Clinton was quick to attack this by saying it wasn’t the same as “rejection,” to which Obama responded he “saw no difference” between the two terms but if Clinton preferred the strength of the word “reject,” then he both “denounces” and “rejects” Farrakhan’s endorsement.

I felt as though the topic of health care wasn’t so much discussed as argued between the two; technical health care platform talk seemed only used as a defense to something that had been previously stated by the other candidate. The debate only seemed to flow when the issue of national security came up.

This debate was not full of rainbows and roses; both candidates came out fighting, yet acknowledged their continued respect for one another. It will be interesting to see people’s response to the debate, and if it made much of a difference in their opinions.

For some live-blogging notes from the debate, click here.