Obama breaks down historic racial barrier

DENVER: Barack Obama was to accept his historic nomination on Thursday as the first black to top a major US political party’s presidential ticket, delivering on the closing night of the Democratic convention an impassioned call for change in a country where exactly 45 years earlier civil rights leader Martin Luther Kiing challenged Americans to embrace his “dream” of equality. Obama, who has made little of his race in a so-far bruising run for the White House, was sure to include his personal story in his acceptance address before 75,000 fellow Democrats at a Denver stadium, and millions more watching on television. But he was to also talk about the US’s many challenges today, from health care to international threats, campaign manager David Plouffe said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” news show. His acceptance of the Democratic nomination comes on the 45th anniversary of the Rev. King’s Aug 28, 1963, “I Have a Dream” speech, an exhortation about the frustration of blacks at a time when African Americans in many southern states were denied their voting rights more than 90 years after federal legislation guaranteed them that right. Given America’s tortured racial history Obama was just 2 when King delivered his speech the candidate’s nomination is a gamble for the Democrats in the Nov 4 election as they work to wrest the White House from the Republicans and their candidate McCain, a veteran Arizona senator and Vietnam war hero who turns 72 on Friday. “This is a monumental moment in our nation’s history,” Martin Luther King III, the civil rights icon’s oldest son, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “And it becomes obviously an even greater moment in November if he’s elected.” The stakes were, of course, equally high for Obama, a relative newcomer to the national stage who rose to prominence after delivering the keynote address at the Democratic convention in 2004 and who is still in his first term in the Senate. While his speech four years ago was widely praised as inspirational, on Thursday’s address was expected to convey a simpler message about what he would do for the country as president. “I think what Sen. Obama wants to do is make sure everyone watching at home is going to have a clear sense of where he wants to take the country, that we’re on the wrong path and Barack Obama is going to put us back on the right track both here at home and overseas,” Plouffe said. McCain offered mild criticism ahead of Obama’s speech, telling a Pittsburgh radio station on Thursday that he admires and respects Obama but “I don’t think he’s right for America.” “I think I’m more in touch with the American people as far as my policies, my proposals and my ideas,” McCain told KDKA News Radio. The veteran Arizona senator, whose search for a running mate has recently been largely eclipsed by the fanfare surrounding Obama’s nomination, also told the station that he has not made a decision. Still, he was expected to name his pick this week, possibly on Friday, with the hope that he can generate new momentum for his party’s convention, which begins next Monday in St. Paul, Minnesota.Former Vice President Al Gore also will speak at the Democratic convention on Thursday. Adding a touch of celebrity to the convention’s final night, singers Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder and will.i. am were scheduled to perform, with Academy Award-winner Jennifer Hudson singing the national anthem. Obama had been campaigning in battleground states during the week before turning up on the Denver convention stage unannounced on Wednesday night after running mate Joe Biden’s acceptance speech. Biden used his speech to laud Obama and to tear into McCain, even as he called the latter a “friend” whose “personal courage and heroism ... still amaze me.” Delighting the crowd with his appearance, Obama praised the one-time front-runner for the Democratic nomination Hillary Rodham Clinton, and her husband former President Bill Clinton, as well as his wife for their prime time speeches in support of him this week.