Monday night, Democrats, and maybe a few Republicans, had the privilege of watching the Democratic debate featuring only three (three! not eight!) candidates.

I don’t even know why John Edwards was up there. It was clearly a contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It was vicious. They talked over each other. Wolf Blitzer and his beard looked at times as though they were losing control of the debate. Clinton attacked Obama’s record, Obama accused Clinton of doing anything to get elected. Edwards, for his part, still seems intent on remaining in the race, despite coming in third in Nevada by 41 points, and only gaining four percent of the vote. This is much closer to what political debates should be, however, rather than the glorified joint press conferences that occurred when there were eight or nine candidates, where Mike Gravel got as much speaking time as Hillary Clinton.

The obsessive pundits and bloggers tried as always to score the debate, declare a winner — frankly, Edwards probably won because he didn’t bother to slam his opponents. The focus on declaring a winner, however, misses the point, and the value, of this debate. For the first time, really, the two candidates with a serious chance of winning the Democratic nomination questioned each other on their political pasts and plans for the future.

This is a good thing. This is a great thing. It needs to happen more often. It should have happened earlier in the race. Too many times in the past few weeks we’ve had Bill Clinton take a microphone and wander around a stage, spouting off about Obama’s inexperience. Too often Obama’s Davids, his most well known campaign staffers Plouffe and Axelrod, send out random releases to the press making veiled comments about Clinton, so Obama himself (God forbid!) can avoid saying anything negative about his opponent. But last night, the candidates went directly at each other, and the debate was both entertaining and informative.

It seems as if Obama has gotten a free pass from the media so far, but Clinton’s questioning of his record last night brought to light significant aspects of his career that he has not yet explained. Obama could not offer a good explanation why he voted “present” on 130 bills during his tenure in the Illinois State Senate, only saying that “oftentimes you vote present in order to indicate that you had problems with a bill that otherwise you might be willing to vote for.” He also couldn’t explain his wavering Iraq position — although he opposed it in 2002, Clinton noted correctly that “by the next year the speech was off your Web site. By the next year, you were telling reporters that you agreed with President Bush in his conduct of the war. And by the next year, when you were in the Senate, you were voting to fund the war time after time after time.” Obama did not have a good response for this either. He almost seemed surprised that issues like this would come up.

He’ll have good answers for them in time. But it is clear from the debate last night that Obama cannot simply talk about “hope” and “change” anymore. Clinton now calls him on it — one blogger brilliantly called this new Hillary “Hillary Clinton unplugged” — and, frankly, it’s better for the country if we know what we’re getting ourselves into with an Obama presidency. He’s going to have to engage Clinton in a debate about policy. Instead of constantly reminding voters that he opposed the war, considering that it happened six years ago and it doesn’t really matter now, he should be questioning Clinton on her plans to withdraw troops. Obama’s been doing well with independents, attracted to his rhetoric, but Clinton has consistently won Democratic voters concerned with core issues since Iowa.

If Obama wants to win the nomination, he’s going to have to take on the Clintons more directly. Hillary has shown herself more than willing to make it a fight.