"You have choices, very clear choices," Edwards said. "I will get the troops out in my first year."
The field also pounced on the senator from New York when she appeared to endorse the idea of states' giving drivers' licenses to undocumented immigrants, then back away from it.
Not all of the conversation centered on Clinton. The candidates were asked about education, energy policy, natural disasters, immigration, health care, tax policy and Social Security.
Perhaps the best line of the night - in terms of the reception from the pro-Democratic crowd at Drexel's Main Building Auditorium - came from Biden, who has made no secret of his contempt for the idea that Republican Rudy Giuliani might get elected president.
"All he says is a noun and a verb and 9/11; there's nothing else," Biden said. "He is genuinely not qualified to be president."
Missing from the stage was former Sen. Mike Gravel, who was kept away by MSNBC, which televised the event, on the grounds that he did not meet minimal standards of what it means to be a candidate.
Despite the big-city setting, no special attention was given to urban issues by the questioners, Brian Williams and Tim Russert of NBC News.
