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Obama readies for battle
04/06/2008 14:51 - (SA)
Washington - Barack Obama plunged ahead on Wednesday on a history-making quest to become the first black US president, focusing on healing rifts with defeated rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Democratic Party as a five-month general election matchup against Republican John McCain gets under way.
Obama made history on Tuesday by becoming the first black nominee of a major US political party, a victory on a promise of hope and change for Americans weary of economic turmoil and years of war.
His battle against McCain, a veteran senator who effectively clinched the Republican nomination months ago, looks to be a clash of generations as well as a debate on Iraq. Obama, 46, opposes the war; McCain, 71, is a former Vietnam prisoner of war and staunch supporter of the current US military mission.
In securing the delegates needed to lock up the nomination on Tuesday, Obama completed one of the most remarkable US political campaigns in memory.
Running mate
A first-term senator, unknown nationally four years ago, Obama toppled one of America's most powerful political families. Clinton, seeking to become the first female president, had long been seen as the inevitable nominee.
She has yet to acknowledge Obama's victory in the bruising Democratic race and her aides - also dodging that conclusion - said on the morning television talk shows on Wednesday that she would take a few days to decide what comes next for her.
Clinton was angling to become Obama's running mate and her aides ramped up the speculation on that matter.
"I think a lot of her supporters would like to see her on the ticket," Clinton campaign chairperson Terry McAuliffe said. But Obama spokesperson Robert Gibbs cautioned "there is no deal in the works".
Election battle lines
The primaries behind them, McCain and Obama were wasting no time drawing the battle lines for a general election fight that will make history with the election of either the oldest first-term president or the first black leader.
In speeches marking the start of the general election, both manoeuvred for the advantage with voters sour on the status quo. Democrats are hoping that President George W Bush's unpopularity will carry them to the White House.
McCain, seeking to succeed a fellow Republican, uttered the word "change" more than 30 times as he tried to distance himself from Bush and blister his Democratic rival. Obama uttered the phrase 19 times in a speech that claimed the Democratic presidential nomination.
"The wrong change looks not to the future but to the past for solutions that have failed us before and will surely fail us again," McCain, said in suburban New Orleans. "I have a few years on my opponent, so I am surprised that a young man has bought into so many failed ideas."
In St. Paul, Minnesota, Obama, a first-term Illinois senator, ceded no ground on the reformer mantle and cast McCain - viewed by many in his party as a maverick - as a continuation of Bush's eight-year tenure.
"My differences with him are not personal; they are with the policies he has proposed in this campaign. Because while John McCain can legitimately tout moments of independence from his party in the past, such independence has not been the hallmark of his presidential campaign," Obama said.
Democrats seek unity
Meanwhile, top Democrats were rallying behind Obama, calling on uncommitted superdelegates to make their choice known by Friday.
This is imperative so that "our party can stand united and begin our march toward reversing the eight years of failed Bush/McCain policies that have weakened our country," said the statement. It was issued by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, who is the head of the Democratic Governors Association; and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
- AP
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US Elections Special Report
