Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama traded blows last night in a toe-to-toe finger-wagging confrontation during a televised debate that witnessed the most acrimonious and personal exchanges so far in the Democratic presidential race.

The two candidates repeatedly accused each other of distorting the truth as a long-standing and thinly veiled tension between them was ripped open into public view ahead of Saturday's Democratic primary in South Carolina.

After an early skirmish on the precarious state of the US economy and the need for immediate stimulus measures, Mr Obama launched into an attack on the trustworthiness of both Mrs Clinton and her husband, Bill.

"There was a set of assertions made by Senator Clinton as well as her husband that are not factually accurate," Mr Obama said. "I think that part of what people are looking for right now is someone who is going to solve problems and not resort to the same typical politics that we've seen in Washington."

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Mrs Clinton hit back, saying: "I believe your record and what you say should matter." She added: "It is sometimes difficult to understand what Senator Obama has said, because as soon as he is confronted on it, he says that's not what he meant.

"The facts are that he has said in the past week that he really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last 10 to 15 years, I personally think they had ideas, but they were bad ideas. They were bad ideas for America."

These remarks were aimed at partisan Democratic voters and low-income families hurt by President Reagan's Administration, including many of black voters who will make up at least half the Democratic electorate on Saturday.

Mr Obama replied that he had "spent a lifetime fighting against Ronald Reagan's policies" and was a community organiser in Chicago during that period. "While I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart, I was fighting these fights," he declared to cheers and whoops from the largely black audience.

Mrs Clinton served on the Wal-Mart board from 1986 to 1992, but has more recently returned donations from the controversial retail giant, citing differences with company policies.

She demanded a chance to respond and there were further heated exchanges and interruptions that threatened to run out of control. “We’re just getting warmed up,” said Mrs Clinton at one point.

But she came back with her own fusillade. "I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago."

This was a reference to Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a friend and fundraiser for Mr Obama. Prosecutors have charged him with fraud, attempted extortion and money laundering in a corruption case, which she has previously ignored as an election issue. Mr Obama's campaign last week announced that it was giving to charity more than $40,000 from donors linked to Mr Rezko.

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