Obama clinches Democratic nomination in historic moment

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Illinois Sen. Barack Obama captured enough delegates to win the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, his generational message of change and hope propelling him to become the first black to lead a major U.S. party into a race for the White House.

Obama's victory ended a marathon struggle with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the onetime favorite for the Democratic nomination, that reached new heights in raising money, recruiting volunteers, using new media and attracting new voters.

His win capped a rapid rise from near political obscurity just four years ago.

"Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another – a journey that will bring a new and better day to America," Obama told cheering supporters here Tuesday night, effectively beginning the general election campaign against McCain. "Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States."

McCain, for his part, was in New Orleans for a fund-raising event, where he welcomed Obama as his November opponent and slammed him as the wrong man for the job.

"Both Senator Obama and I promise we will end Washington's stagnant, unproductive partisanship. But one of us has a record of working to do that and one of us doesn't," McCain said. "Americans have seen me put aside partisan and personal interests to move this country forward. They haven't seen Senator Obama do the same."

It was a bitter ending for Clinton, who waged her own historic campaign to become America's first woman president, though she declined to disband her campaign outright Tuesday even as she disclosed her interest in being Obama's running mate.

In her speech though, she said she remained "committed" to a Democratic victory in the fall, without mentioning the possibility of being the party's vice presidential nominee.

She said she wanted the millions of voters who supported her campaign "to be respected and to be heard," especially on the issues of ending the war in Iraq, improving the economy and extending health care to all Americans.

With her supporters chanting "Denver," the site of the upcoming Democratic convention, Clinton said she would consult with backers and party leaders before deciding whether to continue her White House bid. She said she would proceed "with the best interests of our party and the country" in mind before deciding.

Obama claimed the party's prize in a speech at the Xcel Energy Center here, staging it where Arizona Sen. John McCain will accept the Republican Party's nomination at the GOP's national convention in September.

In fact, while Obama paid homage to Clinton – "I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton," he said – most of his remarks were aimed directly at McCain.

He made no mention of the possibility of an Obama-Clinton ticket, however. And Obama aides declined to address the prospect amid the celebration of their candidate's victory.

Obama noted that "while John McCain can legitimately tout moments of independence from his party in the past, such independence has not been the hallmark of his presidential campaign." He cited the soon-to-be GOP nominee's backing of President Bush's foreign and fiscal policies.

In New York, Clinton didn't concede, opting instead to note she had received more primary votes than any presidential candidate in U.S. history and that she won "the swing states necessary to get to 270 electoral votes," the number needed to win the White House.

"Given how far we've come and where we need to go as a party it's a question I don't take lightly," she said of what's next. "This has been a long campaign and I will be making no decisions tonight." "But this has always been your campaign," Clinton told supporters. "So to the 18 million people who voted for me and to our many other supporters out there of all ages I want to hear from you."

There was no hint of defeat in the room, starting with Campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe who introduced Clinton as "the next president of the United States."

Earlier in the day, in a conference call with fellow New York lawmakers, Clinton said she would consider being Obama's vice presidential running mate and would keep her campaign in place in order to leverate a spot on the ticket.

"I'm open to it," Clinton said, according to participants, in response to a question from Rep. Nydia Velazquez, who said she believed Obama would need Clinton on the ticket to win Hispanics in the general election.

Clinton also wants to continue pressing Obama on universal health care, her signature issue as first lady in the 1990s and a point of dispute between Obama and Clinton during their epic nomination fight.

In the text of his speech, Obama cautioned against "another election that's governed by fear and innuendo and division" and vowed that "what you won't hear" from the Democratic campaign is "the kind of politics uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon." He challenged the Republican Party to do the same.

Looking ahead to the general election, Obama said, "I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people."

It was a remarkable moment for the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, a 46-year-old politician who, just four years ago, was a member of the Illinois state Senate, virtually unknown outside of the world of Chicago politics.

Indeed, when the campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination began, Obama trailed Clinton, the former first lady and wife of the party's most popular figure, by an average of 22 percentage points.

But exactly five months ago to the day, Obama defied expectations and won the kickoff event of the campaign, the Iowa caucus, with a coalition of supporters that, with few exceptions, held firm throughout the other contests: whites and blacks, men and women, old and young, independents and former Republicans.

His race was at the center of his candidacy, but was not central to his campaign. He inspired voters with a Kennedyesque challenge for Americans to dream of what "the audacity of hope" could accomplish.

Moreover, though, he proved a savvy strategist and tactician and the most prolific fundraiser in the history of American politics, harnessing the power of the Internet as never before.

"It's historic," said Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, who rose from the Jim Crow era of the former capital of the Confederacy to become the first African-American to be elected governor of a state when Virginians chose him as chief executive in 1990.

"His nomination, and his possibility for election, is not the end of the game. It's not the end of the road," said the 77-year-old Wilder, the grandson of slaves. "It's the opening of a new door. It's a new experiment. It's the widening of that opportunity door that has to be kept ajar. And it's a new day - a brand new day - in terms of the realization of that possibility of potential."

While the Democrats were working toward the end of their historic campaign, McCain used the fund-raiser speech to separate himself from Bush, a link Obama makes time and time again, saying the presumptive GOP nominee represents a "third Bush term."

He recounted, for example, how he differed with Bush on the war in Iraq, calling for troop increases when the conflict was not going well.

"I was criticized for doing so by Republicans. I was criticized by Democrats. I was criticized by the press. But I don't answer to them. I answer to you," McCain said.

The 71-year-old McCain nodded to the age difference between himself and Obama, but used it too to mount an aggressive criticism of his rival.

"I have a few years on my opponent, so I am surprised that a young man has bought in to so many failed ideas. Like others before him, he seems to think government is the answer to every problem; that government should take our resources and make our decisions for us," he said.

Bruce Buchanan, who teaches government at the University of Texas in Austin, said it was revealing that McCain wasted no time going on the offensive against Obama.

"This Obama's to lose," Buchanan said, citing the unpopularity of the war in Iraq, economic uncertainties of voters and Bush's unpopularity and the Republican's losses in special electiosn in polls. "It's not a Republican year. On other hand, since both MCain and Obama have lots of vulnerabilities, it's likely to be very close."

Obama clinched the party's nomination on the final day of the Democratic Party's primary season, with the final primaries in South Dakota and Montana. It came, though, as a result of the steady stream of party leaders endorsing him rather than the final 31 regular delegates awarded in the final two primaries.

Former President Jimmy Carter was among those who endorsed Obama on Tuesday, but Carter waited until after the polls closed in South Dakota and Montana before formally announcing his decision.

The superdelegate endorsements and the delegates he won in South Dakota and Montana pushed Obama over the 2,118-delegate threshold he needs to win the party's nomination on the first ballot at the national convention in Denver in August.

Clinton was the projected winner in South Dakota, but Obama was expected to win in Montana.

Although Tuesday was a day for the Obama campaign to savor his victory, the task ahead will be to unite the Democratic Party.

The exit polls in South Dakota suggested that the long primary fight may have taken a toll on party unity, at least temporarily. While 55 percent said the party had been energized by the long primary season, 39 percent said it had had the opposite effect.

The increased talk of an Obama-Clinton ticket pleased VoteBoth.com, an organization that has been pushing the concept for months.

"Heck, even self-described Obama partisans like the dream ticket despite high party polarization," the group said in a statement that referred to growing support for the idea among party leaders.

Included among those is Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., who started as a Clinton backer, became an Obama supporter and now favors a Obama-Clinton ticket.

"We cannot win with just black voters, college students and liberal voters," Scott said recently. "We've got to have working-class whites. We've got to have the support of white women. We've got to have Hispanics, Jewish voters and Catholics. These are the very people that form the core of Hillary's support."

Among some Clinton supporters, the day of disappointment became an evening of anger as the reality of the situation sank in. Clinton backers took to the campaign's official blog to express anger over media reports that she would concede defeat and about Obama as the party's standard bearer in November.

"Would someone with legal experience contact the FCC? The media is totally out of control," said a comment posted by a Clinton backer identified as PatFlorida.

Another Clinton supporter, identified as Keith W., blasted the media and said CNN "has pushed Obama down our throats this whole primary process."

"I say to you now, I will not vote for Obama as he is the worse(CQ) candidate this Democratic Party has backed ever and I won't have any of this with this guy," he wrote. "Hillary please, please stay in this fight, enter the general election as an independent, you've got my vote."

But Obama, in his victory speech, rejected the suggestion that the Democratic primary season had hurt the party.

"There are those who say that this primary has somehow left us weaker and more divided. Well I say that because of this primary, there are millions of Americans who have cast their ballot for the very first time," he said.

"There are Independents and Republicans who understand that this election isn't just about the party in charge of Washington, it's about the need to change Washington. There are young people, and African-Americans, and Latinos, and women of all ages who have voted in numbers that have broken records and inspired a nation," he added.

Scott Shepard's e-mail address is sshepard(at)coxnews.com. Ken Herman's e-mail address is kherman(at)coxnews.com.

(Correspondent Bob Deans contributed to this report.)