A crisp and sure-footed performance by Hillary Clinton last night appeared to confirm her status as the frontrunner - by a narrow margin - for the Democratic presidential nomination after the first televised debate with her rivals.

She was helped by a format for questioning all eight candidates which allowed little time for dwelling on any issue, including that of Iraq on which she has faced criticism from Democratic activists over her refusal to apologise for voting to authorise the war.

Instead, the tone of last night's debate was polite to the point of being lacklustre, as the top tier candidates - Mrs Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards - avoided the risk of direct confrontation with each other.

"I think that what Barack said is right," was Mrs Clinton's only direct reference to her chief opponent last night. A Wall Street Journal poll this week had her still in the lead with 36 per cent support, against the gathering challenge of Mr Obama at 31 per cent and Mr Edwards at 20 per cent.

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The most combative of them last night was Mr Edwards, who has renounced his own vote in favour of the war in 2002. "We need a leader who will be open and honest, who will tell the truth when they made a mistake," he said last night.

But he denied this was taking a shot at Mrs Clinton, saying only that she must "search themselves and decide whether they believe they've voted the right way." She responded with her now standard line of accepting responsibility for her vote before switching the subject to the future, saying: "If this President does not get us out of Iraq, when I am president, I will."

Mr Edwards also appeared to take a jab at Mr Obama, suggesting he lacked substance on healthcare policy - a top issue from Democratic voters and one on which "highfalutin language is not enough”.

But Mr Obama offered few of the rhetorical flourishes or flashes of charisma which has earned him so much admiration and - although he did not slip up - was perhaps over-cautious.

But towards the end of the debate he sought to appear presidential by entering into exchanges with Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel. These two fringe candidates had already provided most of the flashpoints on a night when they were both clearly desperate to take a rare opportunity for making an impression.

Mr Kucinich accused Mr Obama of "setting the stage for another war" by failing to rule out military action against Iran and questioned his assertion that the Islamic Republic was intent on developing nuclear weapons. Mr Obama stopped his interruptions with an authoritative "let me finish" before reiterating that "we have to take seriously the threat from Iran"

Mr Gravel, who said the top tier candidates' views "frighten me", paid special attention to Mr Obama, asking: "Who are we going to nuke? Tell me Barack, who do you want to nuke." Mr Obama replied: "I'm not planning to nuke anybody right now, Mike, I promise." Back came Mr Gravel, saying: "Good, good, we're safe then. For a while."

Asked about a recent poll showing most Americans have an unfavourable opinion of her and claims that Republicans are keen for her to be the Democratic candidate, Mrs Clinton responded cooly, saying of her right-wing critics: "I take it as a perverse form of flattery, actually, that if they weren't worried, they would not be so vitriolic in their criticism of me."

She earned praise from pundits, a group not necessarily representative of Democratic voters, last night for the clarity of her answer to a question about what she would do if American cities were once more attacked by al-Qaeda. "I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate," said Mrs Clinton.

"I supported President Bush when he went after al-Qaeda and Taleban in Afghanistan. And then he decided to divert attention to Iraq, it was not a decision I would have made, had I been president, because we still haven't bin Laden. So let's focus on those who have attacked us and do everything we can to destroy them."

Mr Obama, who had earlier once again pointed out that he opposed the Iraq war from the outset, answered the same question with a long-winded answer which talked only of "potentially" taking "some action to dismantle" a terrorist network.

After Ms Clinton had spoken, he came for a second stab at this answer, saying: "One thing that I do have to come back on, this issue of terrorism: we do have genuine enemies out there that have to be hunted down, networks have to be dismantled."

The shortest answer of the night came from Joe Biden, a candidate known for his verbosity, who was asked if he had the discipline to lead American on the world stage. “Yes,” he said, in one of the lighter moments of the 90-minute debate.

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