Obama rejects Clinton debate proposal

Barack Obama on Sunday rejected rival White House hopeful Hillary Clinton's proposal for a one-on-one, unmoderated debate ahead of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on May 6.

"We're not having debates between now and Indiana," Obama said on Fox News.

He brushed aside accusations that he was shying away from debating Clinton after what has been viewed as a lacklustre performance in a debate earlier this month against the former first lady.

"I'm not ducking. We have had 21" debates since the beginning of the campaign, the Illinois senator said when asked about the Clinton proposal.

"What we have said is with two weeks, two big states, we want to make sure that we're talking to as many folks as possible, taking questions from voters," he said.

On Saturday Clinton publicly challenged her Democratic rival, who narrowly leads their battle for the party's presidential nomination, to a head-to-head debate that would, unlike their previous show-downs, not have a moderator.

"Here is my proposal: I'm offering Senator Obama the chance to debate me one-on-one, no moderators. Just the two of us going for 90 minutes asking and answering questions. We'll set whatever rules seem fair," Clinton said.

Clinton's offer came after her face-off against Obama in a moderated debate in Philadelphia on April 16 appeared to help seal Clinton's ten-point victory in last week's Pennsylvania primary.

In a letter to Obama's campaign, Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams suggested the debate could mark the 150th anniversary of the historical debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, "where two candidates put their ideas, their visions, and their values before the American people," Williams said.

"We can surely meet the standard our forebears did. Our final two primary candidates to date have had three fewer debates than Lincoln and Douglas held in single state over 60 days in 1858."

Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs, replying to Williams' offer, said the Obama campaign would rather focus on speaking directly to voters on the ground.

"Over the next 10 days, we believe it's important to talk directly to the voters of Indiana and North Carolina about fixing our economy, cutting the cost of health care and ending a war in Iraq that never should have been authorized in the first place," he said.

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