DENVER // Speaking before tens of thousands of supporters on the biggest night of his short political life, Barack Obama formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination today, writing himself into the history books as America's first black major-party nominee. Saying the United States stands at "one of those defining moments" and that "we are a better country than this", Mr Obama drew sharp policy differences between himself and his Republican rival, John McCain, on everything from the economic troubles at home to the two wars the US is fighting abroad. And he did it largely by employing the tactic used by speaker after speaker at the Democratic National Convention this past week: linking Mr McCain to the unpopular incumbent president, George W Bush. "Next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third," Mr Obama said, prompting cries of "No!" from the crowd. "And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look just like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: 'Enough is enough.'" Born to a white mother from small-town Kansas and a black father from Kenya, who left the family when Mr Obama was two, the freshman Illinois senator has held himself up as an example of the American dream. And last night, he used his story - a story he has said would be possible in "no other country on earth" - to portray himself as a man who understands adversity first-hand, and has overcome it. He talked of his mother, who raised him and his sister as a single parent and was once reliant on food stamps. He talked of his grandmother, who worked her way up from a secretary's job to a position as a manager, but was never paid equitably. He talked of teachers and military families and young people who, despite Americans' deep cynicism about politics, have been drawn to it for the first time. And he talked of what he called "America's promise". Mr Obama abandoned the traditional convention hall setting where acceptance speeches are normally given before just several thousand delegates and the media in favour of an open-air sports stadium that seats some 75,000. But while the venue itself played into one of the charges Republicans have levelled at him - that he is more celebrity than substance, a political neophyte unprepared for the presidency - he was careful to replace some of his soaring rhetoric with a more specific outline for how he intends to lead America in a new direction, which has been the centrepiece of his campaign. Mr Obama pledged to cut taxes for the vast majority of working families; end the war in Iraq and "finish the fight" against al Qa'eda and the Taliban in Afghanistan; eliminate America's dependence on oil from the Middle East in a decade; and invest $150 billion over the next 10 years in renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. He committed to a robust, but responsible, foreign policy based upon "tough, direct diplomacy". And he said he would "restore our moral standing so that America is once more the last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace and who yearn for a better future". While Mr Obama praised Mr McCain's military service, he used some of his toughest, and most partisan, language yet against his opponent. He said Mr McCain has at times broken ranks with his party but overall has been "anything but independent", supporting Mr Bush in Congress 90 per cent of the time. "I don't know about you," Mr Obama said, "but I'm not ready to take a 10 per cent chance on change." Mr McCain immediately released a statement on the acceptance speech, calling it a "misleading speech that was so fundamentally at odds with the meager record of Barack Obama". Among the massive crowd, which began arriving at the stadium even before the gates opened in the early afternoon, over seven hours before Mr Obama was to speak, were Carol Bell, a nurse, and her husband, Victory, a delegate and city alderman, from Rockford, Illinois. They came decked out like twins, wearing tall Uncle Sam hats decorated with the letters O-B-A-M-A in gold, and necklaces of red, white and blue around their necks. "It's being able to be a part of, and living a part of, history in the making," said Mrs Bell, 64, of attending the speech, which took place on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech. "This country will never be the same. We have made a monumental step towards inclusion." eniedowski@thenational.ae
