Barack Obama Limps over Finish Line
Barack Obama limped across the finish line after
being defeated by Hillary Clinton in South Dakota,
a state where he had been heavily favoured
The cocky Illinois senator took Montana,
bringing the five-month primary campaign to an end
Full Text of Obama Speech
[The Cock Crows on Its Dunghill]
America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.
The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations.
But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.
Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless.
This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.
This was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth [Laughter?].
This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America. Too much more
BaBa, Black Sheep...Here Comes the Fool
Barack Obama limped across the finish line after being defeated by Mrs Clinton in South Dakota, a state where he had been heavily favoured. The young Illinois senator took Montana, bringing the five-month primary campaign to an end.
In his victory speech in St Paul, Mr Obama paid fulsome tribute to his vanquished opponent: "Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honour to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"We've certainly had our differences over the last sixteen months. But… what gets Hillary Clinton is up in the morning an unyielding desire to improve the lives of ordinary Americans."
In New York, Mrs Clinton, 60, was defiant. "Now the question is where do we go from here," she said, to cries of "Denver, Denver" – site of the Democratic convention in August when Mr Obama, 46, will be formally crowned as the nominee.
"It's a question I don't take lightly," she added. "This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight."
The vice-presidential suggestion by Mrs Clinton, which was likely to be treated as presumptuous by the victorious Mr Obama, came in a conference call with congressional supporters from New York as she prepared to pull out of the White House race.
"I am open to it," Mrs Clinton replied when Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez told her that Mr Obama would not win the November general election against John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, because only she could gain the support of Hispanics.
In the hours before the polls closed in South Dakota and Montana, Mr Obama and staff in his Chicago headquarters made telephone calls to urge the remaining uncommitted "super-delegates" – party officials not tied to election votes – to back him over Mrs Clinton.
A trickle of super-delegates became a steady stream throughout the day, with leading names such as former President Jimmy Carter and Congressman James Clyburn, the most senior black in the House of Representatives, declaring for Mr Obama.
Mrs Clinton's aides indicated she would not concede the race publicly last night but would instead formally pull out on Wednesday or Thursday, perhaps in a joint event with Mr Obama in Virginia. Another possible plan was that she might appear with him at a fundraising event in New York on Wednesday night.
Mr Obama amassed enough delegates so that the returns from the two states would pushed him beyond the winning number of 2,118, meaning that voters rather than Democratic pooh-bahs finally put him over the top.
As the last polls closed, Mr Obama needed just eight delegates to move beyond the 2,118 with some 31 delegates at stake in the two states.
His victory speech was held before 32,000 people at the Xcel Energy Center in St Paul, Minnesota, the same arena in which his general election opponent John McCain will accept the Republican nomination at the party convention in September.
Asked on Monday night whether he felt emotional about the historic moment, Mr Obama, who entered the White House race last February as the underdog against the establishment candidate Mrs Clinton, replied: "Not yet but talk to me tomorrow night."
Mrs Clinton appeared to have abandoned her White House dream for at least the next four years with her most senior aide predicting she would telephone her Democratic rival to acknowledge him as the winner as early as Tuesday night.
"Yes, I think if Senator Obama gets the number, I think Hillary Clinton will congratulate him and call him the nominee," said Terry McAuliffe, her campaign chairman, effectively ruling out a challenge at the Democratic convention in August.
Debbie Dingell, a super-delegate and key Clinton ally, endorsed Mr Obama. "It is time to unite behind Barack Obama, who will be our Democratic nominee for the White House.
"He will lead our party to victory in November, carrying Michigan for the Democrats by running a campaign focused on bringing change to working families.
Mr McAuliffe, speaking to NBC News, said Democrats would come together against Mr McCain despite the sometimes acrimonious primary battle between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton.
"This has been a great race. History is being made this year – potentially the first African-American nominee of the party, the first woman. It has been a great race. We've brought 20 million more voters out than ever before. No matter what happens we are going to be a unified party going forward."
There was an elaborate choreography developing around Mrs Clinton's expected withdrawal from the race.
A key issue was understood to be her parlous financial situation with campaign debts of about $40 million, at least $11.5 million she has lent herself.
Mr Obama, who has become the most prodigious fundraiser in American political history, is likely to agree to help Mrs Clinton reduce her debts in return for the full support of her and her husband former president Bill Clinton against Mr McCain.
The Illinois senator said he had told Mrs Clinton he was "looking forward to meeting with her at a time and place of her choosing".
But the rawness of the loss to Mr Obama – whom the Clintons initially viewed as an arrogant upstart for challenging the former First Lady's seemingly inevitable nomination – was apparent on Monday when the former president erupted over a magazine article about him.
Talking to a Huffington Post blogger at an event in Millbank, South Dakota, Mr Clinton blasted Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum, author of a caustic profile of him, as "sleazy", "slimy" and "a scumbag".
Mr Clinton also ranted that the media had been biased against his wife and suggested that Mr Obama had done nothing about it.
He cited the recent case of Father Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and friend of Mr Obama who said in a sermon that Mrs Clinton resented her opponent because he was black.
"It's part of the national media's attempt to nail Hillary for Obama," Mr Clinton said. "It's just the most biased press coverage in history.
It's another way of helping Obama. They had all these people standing up in this church cheering, calling Hillary a white racist, and he didn't do anything about it.
"The first day he said 'Ah, ah, ah well.' Because that's what they do – he gets other people to slime her. So then they saw the movie they thought this is a great ad for John McCain – maybe I better quit the church. It's all politics. It's all about the bias of the media for Obama."
Mr Obama said that when he telephoned Mrs Clinton on Sunday to congratulate her on her primary win in Puerto Rico, he had "apologised once again for the offensive remarks that were made by Father Pfleger back in Chicago".
The outburst by Mr Clinton will boost those within his inner circle who argue strenuously that he would not play second or third fiddle to Mr Obama if his wife was back in the White House as vice-president.
he has done it! no only the primaries left lol.