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June 11, 2008:
Obama makes history as he seals US Democratic presidential nomination

“America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page of the policies of the past.”

With this victory announcement Barack Obama claimed the Democratic presidential nomination, and made history by becoming the first black dandidate to lead a major US party into a White House race.

His win over party opponent Hillary Clinton came after a tough marathon battle, which often turned personal and bitter and fractured the Democratic party.

The significance of the Obama victory was recognized worldside. From the far side of the atlantic Sunday Times writer Andrew Sullivan glowed in last Sunday's issue: "I wonder if Americans have yet fully absorbed what they have done. Thjis past week - 41 years after the Supreme Court struck down the last bans on interracial marriage and only 40 years after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated - a black man became the favorite to be the next president of the United States."

To add further history to the occasion, and with remarkable timing, Obama is due to deliver his convention acceptance speech 45 years to the day after King made his famous "I have a dream" speech.

Between now and that convention on August 25-28, the Democrats will be concentrating their efforts of rebuilding party unity and a divisive campaign, and concentrating their fire on Republican candidate John McCain.

In his winning speech, the 46-year-old rookie from Illinois Obama was gracious in victory to his party opponent Hillary Clinton, a tough and seasoned politician whose dreams of becoming the first woman president were shattered.

He praised her courage and leadership: "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."

Equally the 60-year-old Senator Clinton was gracious in defeat, and pledged her full support of Obama.

Announcing that she was quitting the race for the presidency, she said: "I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run. I endorse him, and throw my full support behind him. And I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me...So today, I am standing with Senator Obama to say: Yes we can...We will make history together as we write the next chapter in America’s story."

With Clinton despatched, Obama is now turning his full attention on the man Republicans hope to put in the White House, 71-year old war hero John McCain.

In a taste of what is to come during the five-month fight for the presidency ahead, Obama cast the Arizona senator as a carbon copy of President George W. Bush, especially in his support of the war in Iraq.

While acknowledging that McCain had served his country heroically, he accused him of having stood with George Bush 95% of the time in the Senate, and offering four more years of failed Bush economic policies.

News Files