Barack Obama hits McCain, sets tone for campaign with historic speech

Barack Obama hits McCain, sets tone for campaign with historic speech

BY MICHAEL McAULIFF, MICHAEL SAUL and DAVID SALTONSTALL

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, August 28th 2008, 9:22 PM

Pensinger/Getty

Barack Obama delivered his historic speech to more than 80,000 loyal Democrats in Denver.

DENVER - Barack Obama claimed his spot in history as the first African-American standard bearer of a major party Thursday night, rallying Democrats with his sharpest-ever assault on Republican leadership.

"Sen. McCain likes to talk about judgement, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush was right more than 90% of the time?" he said of the Republican nominee-to-be.

"I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10% chance on change," Obama said in his prime-time speech.

Before a raucous, flag-waving crowd in Denver's 75,000-seat Invesco Field, Obama crafted a message that was both more personal and more pointed as he kicked off his fall campaign.


With Republicans suggesting his improbable run has been long on hype and short on specifics, the Illinois senator used the opportunity of a massive audience - both in the stands and on television - to forcefully lay out the choice ahead.

"Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it," he said.

"Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship our jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

"I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95% of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class."

Forty-five years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, an electrified throng was on hand to be part of history - to see and hear the man who could be the first black President, and to be part of the largest crowd to witness a convention acceptance speech.

"Obviously it's a very proud moment for me to see this happen," said City Councilman Bill Perkins (D-Harlem), an early Obama supporter. "If I wasn't so macho, I'd probably break down and cry a little bit."

Before his big moment, the Illinois senator found time to shoot some hoops at a local basketball court.

Adding a touch of celebrity to the convention's final night, the singer will.i.am led the diverse crowd - young and old, black and white - in a rousing version of "Yes We Can," a campaign theme the singer transformed into a song.

Academy Award-winner Jennifer Hudson kicked the celebration off with a thunderous version of the national anthem.

The stakes Thursday night could not be much higher for the 47-year-old Obama, who - despite a campaign marked by huge crowds, record fund-raising and scores of new voters - remains essentially tied in most polls with McCain.

The GOP has cast Obama as too young, too inexperienced and too liberal to lead the country, especially at a time of war and international unrest.

Obama forcefully contrasted the Democrats' handling of foreign affairs over time to the Republican's stewardship of the last eight years.

"We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country," Obama said. "The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans - Democrats and Republicans - have built, and we are to restore that legacy."

An American story

The son of a black Kenyan father and a white mom from Kansas, reared in Hawaii and educated in the Ivy League, Obama's biography is unquestionably unique among anyone who has ever run for the White House.

It's a humble story, Obama suggested, that could only be written in America and had left him with a deep appreciation of the nation's enduring values.

"It is that promise that has always set this country apart - that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well," he said.


Obama accepted his party's nod on a day that few might have imagined back in 1963, when King dreamed of a nation where his children "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Obama - whom many see as the realization of that dream - made note of King's speech and another historic marker that he says shows the government's lingering indifference to blacks: today's third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

The disaster struck many of New Orleans' black residents particularly hard and has become symbolic, many believe, of Republican indifference toward minorities.

The speech marks the capstone of a week when Team Obama ceded much of the spotlight to his one-time primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.


Critics have mockingly called it "the Clinton convention." But Obama insiders said Thursday they had long viewed the convention as their last best chance to unify the Democratic Party - a mission they now consider accomplished.

Josh Earnest. "And I think everybody would agree that our party is 100% unified behind Barack Obama as the nominee."

Well, maybe not everybody.

At a morning breakfast of the DNC's women's caucus, several protesters carrying "Hillary: Smart Choice" signs were quietly ushered from the room.

But most in the room were like former Vermont Gov. Madeleine Kunin, who sported a button that read, "Hillary supports Obama, and so do I."

"The choice is no longer between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton," said Kunin. "The choice is between John McCain and Barack Obama."