Bill and Hillary, at last, leave the stage

Roger Simon1 hour, 26 minutes ago

DENVER — The Clintons have left the building. Finally.

Bill Clinton did his bit for Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, just as Hillary had done her bit the night before. And now, at long last, they are getting off the stage so Obama can get on.

It is not a moment too soon. For a convention devoted to the nomination of Barack Obama, there has been an awful lot of attention lavished on both Clintons. But the Clintons have returned the favor.

The theme of Bill’s speech could easily be reduced to one word: Ready.

“Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world,” Bill said. “Ready to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States.”

But Bill Clinton is also a charmer. It is his greatest political gift. And he was charming Wednesday night.

“The campaign generated so much heat, it increased global warming,” he said of the primaries. “In the end, my candidate didn’t win. But I’m very proud of the campaign she ran: She never quit on the people she stood up for, on the changes she pushed for, on the future she wants for all our children.”

Along with praising his wife and supporting his party’s nominee, Bill had one great task: to begin his own redemption.

Although his reputation had survived impeachment virtually untarnished — at least among Democrats — it did not survive his wife’s campaign. Never famous for self-control in private, he showed a lack of it in public, delivering finger-wagging accusations in New Hampshire that Obama’s campaign was a “fairy tale” and making racially tinged comments about Obama in South Carolina.

Wednesday night, however, Bill recognized the historic importance of Obama’s nomination.

“His life is a 21st-century incarnation of the American dream,” Bill said. “His achievements are proof of our continuing progress toward the ‘more perfect union’ of our founders’ dreams.”

Bill talked about the “humanity” of America and said: “We see that humanity, that strength, and our future in Barack and Michelle Obama and their beautiful children.”

Some African-Americans, who had been among Bill’s greatest supporters, were shocked and saddened by the role he played in the primary campaign. In the beginning, he thought he would be his wife’s ambassador to black America, but he ended up by being her ambassador to white, rural America. (After all, before Bill was called the “first black president,” he was called the “Bubba” president.)

Some in Hillary’s campaign still believe Bill was misused, his role never clearly defined. “She didn’t want to be seen as Bill’s third term,” a Hillary adviser said. “He was in a rage over how they used him.”

He was in a rage over a lot of things during the campaign, and even those who count him as a great president and a good friend admit that his political victories and political skills come from a different era of American politics.

“He was not used to the 24/7 news cycle and people with cell phones recording what he said at every stop,” a close associate of his told me. “But you can’t blame Bill Clinton for the loss. At end of the day, he was a huge plus.”

Now, both Clintons have a chance to be a plus for Obama. But one of the greatest contributions they can make is to leave the spotlight. There can be only one nominee.

Conventions are a time for unity and good feelings, however, and the crowd received Bill very, very warmly Wednesday night.

Basking in the applause, he said: “I love this.”

And who says Bill Clinton doesn’t tell the truth?

Bill Clinton forcefully endorses Obama at DNC

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 8 minutes ago

Former President Clinton gave his full-throated endorsement to Barack Obama's bid for the White House on Wednesday, telling delegates to the Democratic convention that Obama is "ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world."

Clinton pushed back against attacks — initiated by himself and his wife during the bitter primary campaign, and later taken up by Republican John McCain — that Obama is ill-prepared for the White House, especially on matters of national defense.

He also suggested that on such weighty issues, Obama would be leaning on his seasoned vice president, six-term Sen. Joe Biden.

"With Joe Biden's experience and wisdom, supporting Barack Obama's proven understanding, insight and good instincts, America will have the national security leadership we need," Clinton said.

Clinton campaigned feverishly for his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her long-fought primary battle against Obama, and took her loss hard. He had not spoken out strongly in support of Obama since he clinched the nomination in June.

But Wednesday, he was unambiguous in passing the torch of Democratic leadership to Obama.

Jabbing a finger at thousands of cheering delegates, he declared: "I want all of you who supported her to vote for Barack Obama in November."

Running just over 20 minutes, Clinton's speech whipped thousands of delegates into a frenzy. Where a night before they had hoisted "Hillary" banners, on this night they waved American flags, symbols of the unity the fractious party seeks.

The delegates stood on their feet and roared for nearly 3 1/2 minutes when Clinton walked on stage. The former president basked in their affection, but after several false starts at his speech, commanded: "Sit down!"

Clinton was by turns funny, nostalgic and wonkish, touching on issues like health care and pension benefits.

Clinton, ever mindful of himself, likened Obama's presidential quest to his own bid for the presidency in 1992, when "Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief."

"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."

He allowed that the primary campaign had generated "so much heat it increased global warming."

"In the end," he said, "my candidate didn't win. But I'm proud of the campaign she ran: She never quit on the people she stood up for, on the changes she pushed for, on the future she wants for all our children."

In an unusual gesture for a partisan address, Clinton offered measured praise for Republican John McCain, saying he had served heroically in Vietnam. "He loves our country every bit as much as we all do," Clinton said. "And as a senator, he has shown his independence of right-wing orthodoxy on several issues."

But, he said, McCain "still embraces the extreme philosophy which has defined his party for more than 25 years."

McCain's campaign sought to turn the Clinton speech to GOP advantage.

"It is indicative of the concern among Democratic voters about Barack Obama's inexperience that after three full days of the Democratic National Convention, President Clinton was finally forced to testify that Senator Obama is ready to be president, despite his previous arguments to the contrary," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

Clinton's address elicited some nostalgia of its own among the delegates.

"He can still mesmerize a crowd," said Oregon delegate Sam Sappington.

Standing nearby, Lloyd Henion, who came to Denver as a Clinton delegate from Oregon, said the former president "hit a 500-foot home run. He hit all the points."

Clinton's challenge Wednesday night was tall, because he himself had questioned Obama's credentials.

During the primary race, the former president tried to raise doubts about whether the first-term Illinois senator had the experience to lead the country. He said Obama's opposition to the Iraq war was a "fairy tale."

Last fall, he dismissed Obama as totally unqualified.

"I mean, when is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running?" Clinton said on "The Charlie Rose Show. "In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentator and let them run."

Last winter, Clinton said that after "all the mean things" the Obama campaign had said about him, "I should be the last person to defend him. (But) if he wins this nomination, I'm going to do what I can to help him win."

Clinton was departing Denver on Thursday morning, hours before Obama gives his acceptance speech.

Aides said this was standard practice for Clinton, and not a snub. Clinton did likewise at the 2000 and 2004 conventions, they said.

Obama: History in the making, first black nominee

By JESSE J. HOLLAND and CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press WritersWed Aug 27, 7:04 PM ET

When this campaign ends, after future presidents have come and gone, and when today's young people are grown old, history will remember Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008, as the day a black man became the presidential nominee of a major party.

This is history with the ink still wet; transcendent, yet in your face now.

It's a history that belongs to the red states and the blue states and the United States, to borrow the phrase that made people first sit up and listen to Barack Obama only four years ago.

Americans who don't like him, who will never vote for him, own it, too.

The roll call of states Wednesday night at the Democratic convention means Denver joins Springfield, Ill., and Washington, D.C. in an arc that spans centuries which saw slavery, emancipation, lynchings, Jim Crow, lunch counter bigotry, voting rights, integration, oratory, intermarriage, black pride, assassination, riots, marches — so many marches — and now a nomination.

The arc traces Abraham Lincoln's legacy of freeing the slaves to Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at the Lincoln Memorial 45 years ago Thursday, to the convention center in Denver.

And on next to Invesco Field, where Obama will speak on the anniversary of King's "I have a dream" speech.

"This is a monumental moment in our nation's history," Martin Luther King III, the civil rights icon's oldest son, told AP on Wednesday. "And it becomes obviously an even greater moment in November if he's elected."

Democrats have danced around race for much of their convention, to a point where the marker that will enter the history books is almost obscured. It's all about making whites comfortable voting for him. Democrats worry about a backlash.

Obama's racial milestone was on everyone's minds but few lips as speaker after speaker stood to emphasize that he is a regular guy.

Yet all knew, win or lose in the fall, something for the ages was unfolding. "This man is on a mission," said Florida delegate Cynthia Moore Chestnut of Gainesville.

That's a lot riding on someone who has fought no wars, led no mass protests, served two-thirds of a term in the Senate, and missed the height of the civil rights movement because he was too young.

Until now, Obama's promise has outpaced his achievements and, at times, he has sounded like a man carried along on a wave that came out of the blue.

"When I actually do something," he joked not so long ago, "we'll let you know."

Two movements — for blacks and women — converged in this campaign as Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton went head to head. Both movements got farther than ever before, but only one could carry the day.

The roll call ended her historic campaign to become the first female nominee of a major party and hard feelings linger.

Civil rights and women's rights are not in a horse race. But over two centuries it has felt like one, as if there were only so much equality to go around at any given moment.

Women and blacks have worked together at times, apart at other times and against each other on occasion, as their advancements leapfrogged.

Blacks got the right to vote, then women did. But then blacks wrestled for decades to secure the right to vote without impediments that amounted to disenfranchisement.

Paradoxically (does history ever unfold in a neat progression?), Obama is less a product of the civil rights movement than most of his black country men and women. He is not a descendent of slaves. He is the son of a black man from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas.

Obama inevitably stands on many shoulders as beneficiary of the evolution of black political power in the United States.

There are the shoulders of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, whose many accomplishments include this milestone: At the Republican convention in 1888, he received one vote in the presidential roll call, the first black man to get a vote for a major party nomination.

There are the shoulders of Jesse Jackson, a century later the first black contender to sway the race for president.

And the shoulders of ordinary voters across racial lines, like Kate Clark, 53, a white cafe owner in Nazareth, Pa., who said: "I think we need to see the United States and see the world through eyes that are younger, through eyes that have dreams, through eyes that see something new for the nation."

And Edwin David, who served with the famed World War II unit of black fighters known as the Tuskegee Airmen and, at age 83, and retired in the Pocono Mountains, pleaded: "Just let me live 'til voting time in November. In my lifetime, we just might get to see the first African-American president."

Democrats choose Obama in historic acclamation

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 16 minutes ago

Barack Obama stepped triumphantly into history Wednesday night, the first black American to win a major party presidential nomination, as thousands of Democrats transformed their convention hall into a joyful, shouting celebration.

The son of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother is now one victory from becoming president of a nation where, just decades ago, many blacks were denied the vote.

Competing chants of "Obama!" and "Yes we can!" surged up from the convention floor as the outcome was announced. Later, when their nominee paid a late-night visit to the hall, Obama embraced running mate Joe Biden and implored the delegates to help him "take back America" in the fall campaign against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

"Change in American doesn't start from the top down," he told the adoring crowd, "it starts from the bottom up."

But even as he won the nomination, there was open talk in the convention city that Obama's race remained a stumbling block to winning the White House.

"A lot of white workers ... and quite frankly a lot of union members believe he's the wrong race," AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told a breakfast meeting of Michigan delegates.

Obama will face McCain, who will accept the Republican nomination next week in St. Paul, Minn.

Earlier, former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton asked the convention to interrupt its roll call of the states and make its verdict unanimous "in the spirit of unity, with the goal of victory." And they did, with a roar.

The polls show a close race ahead with McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war a few days shy of his 72nd birthday, and Obama was hoping Democrats would leave their convention united despite the hard feelings remaining from a bruising primary campaign that stretched over 18 months.

Former President Bill Clinton did his part, delivering a strong pitch for the man who defeated his wife for the nomination. "Everything I've learned in 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, to loud cheers.

Michelle Obama, watching from her seat in the balcony, stood and applauded as the former president praised her man.

And Obama, delighting the crowd with his appearance on stage, praised both Clintons as well as his wife for their prime time speeches this week.

"If I'm not mistaken, Hillary Clinton rocked the house last night!" he shouted.

The convention ends Thursday with Obama's acceptance speech, an event expected to draw a crowd of 75,000 at a nearby football stadium where an elaborate backdrop was under construction.

Biden, who has twice sought the presidency in his own right, won his place on Obama's ticket by acclamation.

In his acceptance speech, Biden said Obama was right about Iraq, a war he opposed from the start, and McCain was wrong.

"These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader," Biden said. "A leader who can deliver change. The change that everybody knows we need."

Obama isn't the first black man to seek the White House, but is the first with a chance to win it. Others, including Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, tailored their appeals largely to blacks or lower-income voters of all races.

Obama's reach for political power and history was different, aimed at the broad American political middle. And his nomination, delivered so jubilantly, represents a gamble of sorts by the Democratic Party that a country founded by slave-owners and desegregated only in recent decades — and even then sometimes violently — is ready to place a black man in the Oval Office.

Sen. John Kerry, the party's 2004 nominee, said Obama's victory shouldn't be a close call. In some of the strongest anti-McCain rhetoric of the convention week, he said his longtime friend is merely masquerading as a maverick. "The candidate who once promised a `contest of ideas' now has nothing left but personal attacks," he said. "How insulting ... how pathetic ... how desperate."

Hillary Clinton's call for Obama to be approved by acclamation — midway through the traditional roll call of the states — was the culmination of a painstaking agreement worked out between the two camps to present a unified front after their long and often-bitter fight for the nomination.

Inside the convention hall, the outcome of the roll call of the states was never in doubt, only its mechanics.

"No matter where we stood at the beginning of this campaign, Democrats stand together today," declared Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a former Clinton supporter who delivered a nominating speech for Obama.

"We believe passionately in Barack Obama's message of changing the direction of our country," she said.

Earlier in the day, Clinton formally released her delegates amid shouts of "no," by disappointed supporters. "She doesn't have the right to release us," said Massachusetts delegate Nancy Saboori. "We're not little kids to be told what to do in a half-hour."

And Clinton did get hundreds of votes in the roll call — 341 to Obama's 1,549 — before she called for him to be approved by acclamation.

Polls show the campaign now is a close one between Obama and McCain, and both campaigns have been advertising in nearly a dozen battleground states for weeks.

The same surveys show a strong desire for change after eight years of the Bush administration, and Obama has pledged an end to the war in Iraq and a fresh economic policy.

Obama's nomination sealed a political ascent as astonishing as any other in recent memory — made all the more so by his race, in a nation founded by slave owners.

The son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya whom he barely knew, he attended college and Harvard Law School. In between was a turn as a $12,000-a-year community worker on the streets of Chicago.

He won his seat in the Illinois Legislature in 1996. But his first bid for higher office, a brash challenge to Rep. Bobby Rush in an inner-city Chicago congressional district, ended in failure in 2000.

Four years later, as a candidate for the Senate, he dazzled with a keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, then won his election. He announced his presidential candidacy a scant two years after arriving in Washington.

With his gifts as a speaker, his astounding ability to raise funds on the Internet and an unmatched ground operation pieced together by political veterans, he won the first test, the Iowa caucuses, on Jan. 3

Clinton rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary five days later, and the two were soon matched in a grueling battle for the nomination that was not settled until the primaries ended in June.

"The journey will be difficult. The road will be long," he said then as he pivoted to confront McCain.

Democrats ready celebration for Obama

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent 4 minutes ago

Democrats prepared a grand celebration on Thursday for Barack Obama, who will accept a historic presidential nomination with a speech that spells out his vision for change in America.

Obama, the first black presidential nominee of a major U.S. party, will deliver the address in Denver's open-air football stadium before 75,000 supporters on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech -- a landmark in the U.S. civil rights movement.

The televised speech by Obama, who was formally nominated on Wednesday, will give the first-term Illinois senator his biggest national audience until he meets Republican rival John McCain in late September in the first of three face-to-face debates before the November 4 election.

In an unannounced appearance in the hall at the end of Wednesday's national convention program, Obama said he shifted the event to the football stadium as a tribute to the grass-roots energy of his supporters.

"We want to open up the convention to make sure that everybody who wants to come can join in the party," said Obama, 47, who appeared on stage after the acceptance speech of his newly minted running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden.

National conventions are often the first time voters start to pay attention to a presidential race. Opinion polls show many voters are still unfamiliar with Obama and concerned about his readiness for the job.

Speakers at the convention have tried to address those concerns, led by rousing testimonials for Obama from former rival Hillary Clinton, her husband former President Bill Clinton and Biden.

"Barack Obama is ready to lead America and to restore American leadership in the world," Bill Clinton told flag-waving Democrats, answering a frequent line of Republican attack.

Obama is running even with McCain in opinion polls. Back-to-back nominating conventions -- the Republicans go next week -- will give voters a chance to compare and contrast.

Obama's senior strategist, David Axelrod, told reporters the speech would focus on Obama's vision for the country's future.

THE CASE FOR CHANGE

"He's going to lay out a case for change. He's going to set the stakes of this election, the risks of continuing down the road we're on which is plainly what Senator McCain is offering," Axelrod said.

"And he's going to talk about an alternative path that's rooted in the best of what this country is and the kind of future we can build if we take it," he said.

Some Democrats have said Obama needs to be more specific about his priorities as president, and draw a sharp contrast with McCain. Axelrod said both elements would be included.

"His goal is to talk to the American people directly about the challenges that we face and what it's going to take to solve them," he said.

Obama hopes to get a lift in the polls from his choice of Biden for vice president and from the convention, but McCain will try to reclaim the momentum on Friday with an announcement of his running mate.

McCain has decided on his choice, a Republican official said, and will announce it at a rally in Ohio. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty are among the possible candidates.

If elected McCain would be the oldest first term president to take office. His 72nd birthday is on Friday.

Obama was formally nominated on Wednesday in an emotional show of unity after Hillary Clinton, his vanquished rival, appeared on the convention floor to ask Democrats to suspend their roll call of the states and make Obama the nominee by acclamation.

"With eyes firmly fixed on the future, in the spirit of unity, with the goal of victory, with faith in our party and our country, let's declare together in one voice right here, right now, that Barack Obama is our candidate and he will be our president," she said to raucous cheers.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who endorsed Obama during the primaries, will speak to the convention before Obama on Thursday.

The last presidential candidate to accept the nomination in an open-air football stadium was John Kennedy, who spoke to the Democratic convention at the Los Angeles Coliseum before 80,000 supporters in 1960.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Caren Bohan; Editing by Howard Goller and David Wiessler)