Biden says Obama is ready for challenge

By Chris Casteel

Published: August 28, 2008

DENVER — Sen. Barack Obama made history here Wednesday when Democrats at their national convention officially nominated him as their presidential candidate. He also made a surprise appearance on the stage of the Pepsi Center after his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, gave a glimpse of the fall campaign against Republicans.

Obama, who arrived here Wednesday and is scheduled to speak to a crowd of more than 75,000 when the convention moves to an NFL football stadium today, is the first black presidential nominee for a major political party in the United States.

His nomination came after another crowd-pleasing moment from his former rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who cut off a roll-call vote of delegates to ask that Obama be declared the nominee by acclamation.

Obama came out on stage after Biden's speech, praised his wife, Michelle, as well as Biden and Clinton, and said he decided to give his speech at a football field because he wants "to make sure that everyone who wants to come can join in the effort to take America back.”

Former President Clinton also addressed the Pepsi Center crowd on the third night of the convention, and he sought to make his own support of Obama clear to further unite a party that had been divided during a long and bitter primary. And Sen. John Kerry, who lost the presidential race in 2004 to President Bush, delivered a blistering attack on Republicans and their presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain.

The 66-year-old Biden, who has been in the U.S. Senate since 1973 and is considered an expert on foreign affairs, gave a speech heavy on international themes. He said the United States "is less secure and more isolated than at any time in recent history. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has dug us into a very deep hole, with very few friends to help us climb out.”

He said, "Should we trust John McCain's judgment when he says there can be no timelines to draw down our troops from Iraq — that we must stay indefinitely? Or should we listen to Barack Obama, who says shift responsibility to the Iraqis and set a time to bring our combat troops home? Now, after six long years, the Bush administration and the Iraqi government are on the verge of setting a date to bring our troops home.

"John McCain was wrong. Barack Obama was right.”

Obama, 47, whose father was a Kenyan and mother a Kansan, accepted the nomination through the convention chairwoman, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But he'll claim it in person tonight and take control of a convention that has been nearly dominated by the Clintons. So many people want to be part of the event at Invesco Field that tickets have been hard to come by.

Oklahoma Democrats were scrambling to find more for people who aren't official delegates but want to be part of the history and oratory.

Bill Clinton, who has received a few accolades himself for his speaking skills, got a sustained standing ovation from the Democratic crowd, which showed a lot of love for the former president despite statements he made on the campaign trail for his wife that offended many of Obama's supporters, particularly black ones.

"Hillary told us in no uncertain terms that she's going to do everything she can to elect Barack Obama,” Clinton said. "That makes two of us. Actually, that makes 18 million of us because, like Hillary, I want all of you who supported her to vote for Barack Obama in November.”

Clinton harkened back to 1992, when he won his first term in the White House, saying, "Together we prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief.

"Sound familiar? It didn't work in 1992 because we were on the right side of history. And it won't work in 2008 because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.”

Oklahoma delegate Randy Beutler said he thought all of Wednesday's program was "great — very, very exciting.”

"I think there were a lot of good points about this past administration and about why we need a change.”

Reggie Witten, a delegate from Edmond, said, "It blew me away. Bill Clinton's speech started out incredible and just got better.”

The night of speeches, he said, "left me feeling incredibly optimistic about this election and the future of our country.”

Biden, whose decades of experience on Capitol Hill complement a candidate who has spent less than four years in Washington, kicked off his speech early with a shot at Vice President Dick Cheney.

"Let me make this pledge to you right here and now,” he said. "For every American who is trying to do the right thing, for those people in government who are honoring their pledge to uphold the law and respect our Constitution, no longer will the eight most dreaded words in the English language be: ‘The vice president's on the phone.'”

As other speakers this week, Biden honored McCain's service to the country but criticized his approach to the economy, energy policy and the world.

"Even today, as oil companies post the biggest profits in history — a half trillion dollars in the last five years — he wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks. But he voted time and again against incentives for renewable energy — solar, wind, biofuels. That's not change; that's more of the same.”

Biden twice ran for president. He was among the many Democrats in the early stages of the 2008 race.

Kerry, who grabbed the Democratic nomination in 2004 but lost to Bush and was attacked for flip-flopping on the war in Iraq, said McCain's image of being a maverick is being replaced by "the reality of a politician.”

"Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral,” Kerry said. "Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain's own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote.

"Talk about being for it before you're against it.”

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