DES MOINES, Iowa - Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama weren't just participants in the latest Democratic presidential debate Sunday.

They were the two top issues.

There were eight candidates on stage for an early morning forum at Drake University in Des Moines.

Still, much of the focus was on whether Obama has enough experience to be president, and whether Clinton might be too polarizing to win.

The two national front-runners got so much attention, that one second-tier contender turned to a higher power Sunday, hoping to get at least a little notice.

"I've been standing here for the last 45 minutes praying to God you were going to call on me," Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio told debate moderator George Stephanopoulos of ABC News' This Week program.

Kucinich got a big laugh, and the others - former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska - did get to highlight their differences over Iraq troop withdrawal strategies.

But otherwise, the debate fell into a now-familiar pattern.

Obama turned questions about his experience into his claim to be the anti-establishment choice for change. Clinton referred to the anger she faces from Republicans as a sort of badge of courage heading into the 2008 elections.

And the others tried to get heard where they could.

The opening question was about Biden's recent comment that Obama was "not yet ready" to be president because of his recent statements about international diplomacy.

Biden, one of the most senior members of the U.S. Senate, has criticized Obama for saying he would launch unilateral military action inside Pakistan if the United States had enough information to target terrorists hiding there.

Meanwhile, Clinton has called it "naive" for Obama to say at an earlier debate that he would agree to meet with the leaders of adversarial nations like Iran and North Korea within his first year in office.

Obama dismissed some of the criticism as "political maneuvering" and said he didn't think presidential candidates should be ambiguous about their approaches to diplomacy.

"And it is my belief that we need a fundamental change if we're going to dig ourselves out of the hole that George Bush has placed us in," Obama said. "And that's going to require the kind of aggressive diplomacy - preparation, yes, but aggressive diplomacy, the personal diplomacy of the next president - to transform how the world sees us. That is ultimately going to make us safer."

Clinton was the subject of the second question, as her rivals were asked about her high negative ratings in polls and whether she was too polarizing or too closely linked to the "failed politics of Washington" to win in 2008.

Edwards, who currently is running neck and neck with Obama and Clinton in Iowa polls, said voters elected Democrats expecting big changes in 2006.

"America wants change in the most serious way. And if we become the party of status quo in 2008, that's a loser," Edwards said.

As she has throughout the campaign, Clinton downplayed differences with her Democratic rivals, instead aiming her barbs at Republicans like Karl Rove, the GOP strategist and former White House adviser who drew attention to Clinton's high negative ratings last week.

"Well, I don't think Karl Rove's going to endorse me," Clinton said. "That becomes more and more obvious. But I find it interesting he's so obsessed with me. And I think the reason is because we know how to win."

Some of the sharpest disagreements in Sunday's debate took place on the second tier.

New Mexico Gov. Richardson, who billed himself as the candidate of both "change" and "experience" in the race, was asked to defend his plan for a rapid pull-out of troops within six-months, including tens of thousands of so-called "residual forces" that other Democrats concede will be needed temporarily.

"And it's critically important that we do this with an orderly timetable, but what is key is all of the troops out - no residual forces," Richardson said. "You leave residual forces behind, the peace cannot begin."

Biden, who favors a plan to split Iraq into three, semi-autonomous regions, said it would be dangerous to withdraw as rapidly as Richardson was pledging.

"If we leave Iraq and we leave it in chaos, there'll be regional war," Biden said. "The regional war will engulf us for a generation."

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