Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois sealed the Democratic presidential
nomination Tuesday, a historic step toward his once-improbable goal of
becoming the nation's first black president. A defeated Hillary Rodham
Clinton maneuvered for the vice presidential spot on his fall ticket.
Obama's victory set up a five-month campaign with Republican Sen.
John McCain of Arizona, a race between a 46-year-old opponent of the
Iraq War and a 71-year-old former Vietnam prisoner of war and staunch
supporter of the current U.S. military mission.
McCain was plainly eager for the race to begin, and accused his
younger rival of voting "to deny funds to the soldiers who have done a
brilliant and brave job" in Iraq.
In remarks prepared for delivery in New Orleans, McCain agreed with
Obama that the presidential race would focus on change. "But the choice
is between the right change and the wrong change, between going forward
and going backward," he added.
The newly minted Democratic nominee-in-waiting arranged an evening
appearance in St. Paul, Minn., sending McCain an unmistakable message
by claiming his victory in the very hall where the Arizonan will accept
his party's nomination in early September.
Obama sealed his nomination, according to The Associated Press
tally, based on primary elections, state Democratic caucuses and
delegates' public declarations as well as support from 19 delegates and
"superdelegates" who privately confirmed their intentions t/o the AP.
It takes 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination at the convention in
Denver this summer, and Obama had 2,128 by the AP count.
Obama, a first-term senator who was virtually unknown on the
national stage four years ago, defeated Clinton, the former first lady
and one-time campaign front-runner, in a 17-month marathon for the
Democratic nomination.
His victory had been widely assumed for weeks. But Clinton's
declaration of interest in becoming his ticketmate was wholly
unexpected.
She expressed it in a conference call with her state's congressional
delegation after Rep. Nydia Velazquez, predicted Obama would have great
difficulty winning the support of Hispanics and other voting blocs
unless the former first lady was on the ticket.
"I am open to it" if it would help the party's prospects in
November, Clinton replied, according to a participant who spoke on
condition of anonymity because the call was private.
Obama's campaign had no public reaction to Clinton's comments, which
raised anew the prospect of what many Democrats have called a "Dream
Ticket" that would put a black man and a woman on the same ballot.
McCain's criticism of Obama referred to a vote last year in which
the Illinois senator came out against legislation paying for the Iraq
war because it did not include a timetable for withdrawing troops. At
the time, Obama said the funding would give President Bush "a blank
check to continue down this same, disastrous path."
Obama previously had opposed a deadline for troop withdrawal, but
shifted position under pressure from the Democratic Party's liberal
wing as he maneuvered for support in advance of the primaries.
Tuesday's fast-paced developments unfolded as the long Democratic
nominating struggle ended with primaries in Montana and South Dakota.
Only 31 delegates were at stake, the final few among the thousands
that once drew Obama, Clinton and six other Democratic candidates into
the campaign to replace Bush and become the nation's 44th president.
Clinton was in New York for an appearance before home-state
supporters. Officials said she would concede Obama had the delegates to
secure the Democratic nomination, effectively ending her bid to be the
nation's first female president.
The young Illinois senator's success amounted to a victory of hope
over experience, earned across an enervating 56 primaries and caucuses
that tested the political skills and human endurance of all involved.
Obama stood for hope, and change. Clinton was the candidate of
experience, ready, she said, to serve in the Oval Office from Day One.
Together, they drew record turnouts in primary after primary —
more than 34 million voters in all, independents and Republicans as
well as Democrats.
Yet the race between a black man and a woman exposed deep racial and gender divisions within the party.
Obama drew strength from blacks, and from the younger, more
liberal and wealthier voters in many states. Clinton was preferred by
older, more downscale voters, and women, of course.
Obama's triumph was fashioned on prodigious fundraising,
meticulous organizing and his theme of change aimed at an electorate
opposed to the Iraq war and worried about the economy — all harnessed
to his own gifts as an inspirational speaker.
With her husband's two White House terms as a backdrop, Clinton
campaigned for months as the candidate of experience, a former first
lady and second-term senator ready to be commander in chief.
But after a year on the campaign trail, Obama won the kickoff
Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, and the freshman senator became a political
phenomenon.
"We came together as Democrats, as Republicans and
independents, to stand up and say we are one nation, we are one people
and our time for change has come," he said that night of victory in Des
Moines.
As the strongest female presidential candidate in history,
Clinton drew large, enthusiastic audiences. Yet Obama's were bigger.
One audience, in Dallas, famously cheered when he blew his nose on
stage; a crowd of 75,000 turned out in Portland, Ore., the weekend
before the state's May 20 primary.
The former first lady countered Obama's Iowa victory with an
upset five days later in New Hampshire that set the stage for a
campaign marathon as competitive as any in the past generation.
"Over the last week I listened to you, and in the process I
found my own voice," she told supporters who had saved her candidacy
from an early demise.
In defeat, Obama's aides concluded they had committed a
cardinal sin of New Hampshire politics, forsaking small, intimate
events in favor of speeches to large audiences inviting them to ratify
Iowa's choice.
It was not a mistake they made again — which helped explain
Obama's later outings to bowling alleys, backyard basketball courts and
American Legion halls in the heartland.
Clinton conceded nothing, memorably knocking back a shot of
Crown Royal whiskey at a bar in Indiana, recalling that her grandfather
had taught her to use a shotgun, and driving in a pickup to a gas
station in South Bend, Ind., to emphasize her support for a summertime
suspension of the federal gasoline tax.
As other rivals fell away in winter, Obama and Clinton traded
victories on Super Tuesday, the Feb. 5 series of primaries and caucuses
across 21 states and American Samoa that once seemed likely to settle
the nomination.
But Clinton had a problem that Obama exploited, and he scored a coup she could not answer.
Pressed for cash, the former first lady ran noncompetitive
campaigns in several Super Tuesday caucus states, allowing her rival to
run up his delegate totals.
At the same time, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., endorsed the
young senator in terms that summoned memories of his slain brothers
while seeking to turn the page on the Clinton era.
Merely by surviving Super Tuesday, Obama exceeded expectations.
But he did more than survive, emerging with a lead in delegates that he
never relinquished, and he proceeded to run off a string of 11 straight
victories.
Clinton saved her candidacy once more with primary victories in
Ohio and Texas on March 4, beginning a stretch in which she won in six
of the next nine states on the calendar, as well as in Puerto Rico.
It was a strong run, providing glimpses of what might have been for the one-time front-runner.
Personality issues rose and receded through the campaign:
Clinton's husband, the former president, campaigned tirelessly for her but sometimes became an issue himself, to her detriment.
And Obama struggled to minimize the damage caused by the
incendiary rhetoric of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an
issue likely to be raised anew by Republicans in the fall campaign. (***)
