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From the New York Times:
Senator Barack Obama claimed the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday night, prevailing through an epic battle with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in a primary campaign that inspired millions of voters from every corner of America to demand change in Washington.
A last-minute rush of Democratic superdelegates, as well as split results from the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota, pushed Mr. Obama over the threshold of 2,118 delegates needed to be nominated at the party's convention in Denver in August.
... "You chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears, but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations," Mr. Obama told supporters at a rally in St. Paul. "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. Because of you, tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States."
... The race drew to its final hours with a burst of announcements — delegate-by-delegate — of Democrats stepping forward to declare their support for Mr. Obama. The Democratic establishment, from former President Jimmy Carter to rank-and-file local officials who make up the ranks of the party's superdelegates, rallied behind Mr. Obama as the day wore on.
When the day began, Mr. Obama needed 41 delegates to effectively claim the nomination. Just as the polls began to close in Montana and South Dakota, Mr. Obama secured the delegates he needed to end his duel with Mrs. Clinton, which wound through every state and territory in an unprecedented 57 contests over five months.
From the Washington Post:
... Sen. Barack Obama sealed the Democratic presidential nomination last night after a grueling and history-making campaign against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that will make him the first African American to head a major-party ticket.
Before a chanting and cheering audience in St. Paul, Minn., the first-term senator from Illinois savored what once seemed an unlikely outcome to the Democratic race with a nod to the marathon that was ending and to what will be another hard-fought battle, against Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.
... During his speech, Obama offered praise to his rival. "She has made history not just because she's a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she is a leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight," he said.
... Elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004 after eight years in the Illinois Senate, the 46-year-old Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, accomplished something that few thought possible when he began his candidacy in February 2007 against the heavily favored Clinton.
... Obama proved to be a prodigious fundraiser, tapping the Internet as no candidate ever had to raise millions more than his rival, and also grabbed hold of a powerful movement of grass-roots supporters and volunteers who helped fuel his candidacy and provided a built-in base of organization across the country.
He also tapped effectively into a hunger for change after eight years of the Bush administration. In a Democratic campaign that, initially at least, was cast as experience vs. change, Obama proved to have found the more powerful message.
From the Wall Street Journal:
"Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States of America," Sen. Obama told an estimated 32,000 people gathered in St. Paul, Minn., late Tuesday.
The venue symbolized his start of the general-election campaign against the likely Republican nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain: In September, Republicans hold their presidential convention in the same city. And Sen. Obama's huge audience, compared with Sen. McCain's less than 1,000 supporters for his speech Tuesday night in New Orleans, dramatizes the Democrats' big edge in voter excitement, evident all year in record turnout for the party's primaries and caucuses.
... Once the polls closed Tuesday night, the Obama campaign released the names of 26.5 superdelegates -- those from Michigan and Florida get half-votes, in punishment for holding their primaries too early. With others that came in through the day, and Sen. Obama's share of Montana's and South Dakota's 31 pledged delegates, he could claim the 2,118-delegate majority needed for nomination.
Sen. Obama started Tuesday roughly 40 delegates shy of the number needed. But he exceeded that with the night's final group endorsement from party leaders. In addition, 10 delegates pledged to former candidate and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards switched to him, besides the pledged delegates he'd get from Tuesday's primaries.
... It was the longest nomination race ever.
From the Associated Press:
Speaking in the same arena that will host the Republican nominating convention in early September, Obama said the long, hard primary campaign, now finally ended, should help steel a deeply divided party to do more effective battle against Republicans and their candidate, John McCain.
"Senator Hillary Clinton has made history in this campaign not just because she's a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she's a leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight," Obama said.
"Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete" with her, he said.
... At the Xcel Energy Center, where the GOP convention will begin Sept. 1, nearly all of the 18,000 seats taken and thousands of additional supporters gathered outside. The arena was festooned with large American flags. Loud music blared. The hall erupted into tumultuous screams and cheers when Obama and his wife, Michelle, entered. Supporters pumped Obama signs.
... "After 54 hard-fought contests, our primary season has finally come to an end," Obama said, recalling the day in February 2007 when he announced his candidacy at the Illinois Capitol and the millions who have voted since then.
"Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States," he said. That line brought down the house.
Unity and change were the main themes of his speech, as they have been on the campaign trail.
"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 said.
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