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WORLD> America
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Dems choose Obama in thunderous acclamation
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-28 07:18 "Everything I've learned in my eight years as president and the work I've done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job," he said. The difficulty in uniting the Clinton and Obama camps showed in the careful negotiations for the delegate roll-call that sealed Obama's nomination. Clinton, who won nearly 18 million votes and but could not overcome Obama's delegate total, had wanted the pro forma roll call as a cathartic moment for her huge bloc of supporters. Less than an hour before the roll call, Clinton began an emotional gathering with her delegates by telling them she had released them to vote for Barack Obama. Many in the crowded ballroom yelled back "No!" Despite releasing her delegates, Clinton received 341 votes - to Obama's 1,549 - before she called for him to be approved by acclamation. The Democrats' emphasis on unity was apparent as a leading Clinton supporter, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, delivered a nominating speech for Obama. "No matter where we stood at the beginning of this campaign, Democrats stand together today," she said. Obama has campaigned on a theme of hope and change, tapping into voter dissatisfaction with the old politics of Washington and the unpopular presidency of Republican George W. Bush. He was little known outside his home state of Illinois until 2004 when, as a candidate for the Senate, he dazzled with a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. He won election to the Senate, then announced his presidential candidacy a scant two years after arriving in Washington. With his gifts as a speaker, his astounding ability to raise money on the Internet and an unmatched ground operation pieced together by political veterans, he won a stunning victory in the first nominating contest, the Iowa caucuses on January 3. Obama has pledged to pull US combat forces out of Iraq in 16 months and to make health care available to all Americans. He has called for bipartisan unity and targeted western and southern states that have been Republican strongholds. But he is vulnerable in northern industrial states, Clinton strongholds that have been crucial to Democratic hopes. Obama, his wife Michelle and running mate Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will embark on a bus tour of three of those states: Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. Republicans hold their convention next week to anoint McCain as their candidate. He has not yet announced a running mate, but was expected to do so soon. On Wednesday, McCain's campaign released a new TV ad saying that Obama showed he was "dangerously unprepared" for the White House when he described Iran as a "tiny" nation that did not pose a serious threat. Missing from the ad was the context of Obama's remarks last May in which he compared Iran and other US adversaries to the superpower Soviet Union. In his speech, Bill Clinton defended Obama's national security credentials. Recalling that when he ran for president at age 46 in 1992, "Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be president." "Sound familiar?" Clinton said. "It didn't work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won't work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history."
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