Democratic presidential candidates aimed criticisms away from President Bush and toward each other — namely Howard Dean — at the 2004 presidential campaign’s first nationally televised debate.

The two-hour debate was held Nov. 24 at the Polk County Convention Complex in Des Moines and was moderated by NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw. In the most fiery of the presidential debate series, the candidates sought to distinguish themselves from one another for the first-in-the-nation Jan. 19 Iowa caucuses.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who opted to skip Iowa in the Democratic presidential race, declined to participate in the debate. Senators John Kerry, D-Mass. and John Edwards, D-N.C. participated via satellite in Washington D.C., where they were voting on Medicare legislation.

Many candidates attacked front-runner Dean, former governor of Vermont, as a way to slow his momentum in the presidential race.

U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., criticized Dean for cutting social programs, Kerry criticized Dean for his plans to cut Medicare and Kucinich criticized Dean for supporting NAFTA.

Gephardt depicted Dean as heartless for attempting to reduce deficits in Vermont by cutting social programs for the poorest citizens of the state in the mid-1990s. He aligned himself with former President Bill Clinton and said he balanced the federal budget in a different way than Dean did in Vermont.

“We got the budget in balance. We even supplied a surplus,” Gephardt said. “That’s the way you get rid of deficits. You don’t just cut the most vulnerable in society.”

While there was strong dissension at the debate, the candidates had the same views on most of the topics of the debate, such as gay marriages and the Republican-led bill in Congress adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. They called it a Trojan horse, which would benefit drug companies and HMOs.

Rev. Al Sharpton spoke strongly in favor of a Massachusetts court decision allowing gay marriages.

“Are we prepared to say that gays and lesbians are less than human?” Sharpton asked. “If we’re not prepared to say that, then how do we say that they should not have the same human rights and human choices of anyone else?”

Kerry took a swing at Dean during the debate’s discussion of Medicare. He repeatedly asked Dean if he planned to cut Medicare in order to balance the budget. He said Dean’s expression “reduce the rate of growth” was another word for “cut.”

“Are you going to slow the rate of growth, Governor?” Kerry said. “Yes or no?”

Dean denied plans to cut Medicare.

“Medicare is off the table. We are not going to cut Medicare in order to balance the budget,” Dean said. “I’ve made that very clear.”

Edwards tried to present himself as a more optimistic alternative to the other candidates. He said people were tired of hearing politicians yell at each other and want something other than anger and criticism.

“We have a positive, optimistic, uplifting vision for this country,” Edwards said. “The American people are hungry for it — they want to know what we are going to do for their lives.”

The debate turned toward federal subsidies for ethanol — important to Iowa farmers — but depicted by opponents as the worst subsidy-laden energy use ever imposed on the American public.

Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who described herself as an “ethanol queen,” said ethanol represented an opportunity to use corn to get a jump start on a technological revolution.

Dean said ethanol was essential, as fuel subsidies would move toward American farmers and away from Saudi sheiks.

Dean’s opportunity to strike back against criticism came during a discussion of Iraq. He said other candidates, especially Kerry, supported the war and handed Bush a blank check to invade Iraq.

“This was an abdication and a failure on the part of Congress,” Dean said. “And Sen. Kerry was part of that failure.”

Throughout the debate, Brokaw asked the candidates how they planned to bring back those who were disenfranchised from the Democratic party, such as white Southerners and the religious community. He asked Gen. Wesley Clark about the faith community, which was an about-face from Clark’s regular discussion agenda.

“The Republican Party doesn’t have the monopoly on faith in this country, and there are just as many Democrats who believe in religion as there are Republicans,” Clark replied.