Obama takes aim at McCain in acceptance speech
DENVER — Barack Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night with a scathing assessment of John McCain and a searing indictment of the Bush administration, promising to repair "the broken politics of Washington" and preside over a more prosperous and equitable America.
Speaking to a rapturous audience of more than 80,000, the largest convention crowd ever assembled, Obama delivered an address that was alternately outraged and uplifting, personal and political. He blasted President Bush and McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, with some of his harshest language of the campaign, painting a grim picture of economic hardship: rising unemployment, falling wages, plunging home values and rising costs for gasoline and college tuition.
"Tonight," Obama said, speaking from a specially constructed soundstage on the floor of Denver's Invesco Field, "I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land — enough! This moment — this election — is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive."
In a 40-minute speech, Obama rode a line between policy and personal revelation, between high-flown oratory and an elbow-grease appeals to the working class voters who have stubbornly eluded him throughout the campaign. He slapped McCain even as he called for an end to Washington's partisan politics, including appeals for common ground on some of the nation's most contentious issues: abortion, gay rights, gun control and immigration. And he addressed nearly every major criticism of himself and his campaign head-on
After a passing salute to McCain and his heroic military service, Obama scorched his rival on issues of policy, judgment and character.
"I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans," he said. "I just think he doesn't know." And: "John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell — but he won't even go to the cave where he lives." And "John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time ... I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change."
Obama salted his speech with the stories of people he met on the campaign trail, suggesting he was not as exotic or distant as his mixed-race background and cool demeanor sometimes suggests.
Addressing critics who call his rhetoric vacant, Obama pledged "to end this war in Iraq responsibly and finish the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan;" vowed to wean the U.S. from Middle Eastern oil in a decade, and cut taxes "for 95 percent of all working families," and he said he'd pay for it all in the budget.
He declared himself "not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington." But he challenged McCain on issues domestic and foreign, declaring "If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have."
Melding his signature line and his rival's convention theme, Obama said the nation's troops "have not served a Red America or a Blue America — they have served the United States of America. So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first."
Chicago Tribune correspondents Mike Dorning, Christi Parsons, Frank James and Mark Silva contributed to this report.
