6-04-08, 9:01 am

With the final two primaries in South Dakota and Montana, Barack Obama secured the nomination of the Democratic Party. It is the first time an African American candidate has been nominated for a major political party in the US in its history.

MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews expressed the historical nature of the moment with comparisons to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the election of Nelson Mandela, that country's first Black president. Recollections of the civil rights movement in America were abundant from reporters and commentators on most of the TV coverage.

In a press statement, the Change to Win labor federation, which had endorsed Obama, said, 'Barack Obama is the candidate of the American Dream. We must focus our efforts on building a unified movement for change. The time has come for all voters – men and women, Democrats, Republicans, and independents, all races and ethnic groups, workers and their families – to unite together to create a new American Dream for the 21st century.'

Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY), an endorser of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), told MSNBC News anchor Keith Olbermann that Sen. Hillary Clinton's most important job now is to build the unity of the party behind the nominee and to win in November.

Speaking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer by telephone, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. said, 'I am overwhelmed with a sense of joy.'

Linking Obama's victory to the legacy of American democratic struggles, Jackson said that Obama is ready to take on John McCain. 'He is the right man with the right message of reconciliation. All of America has reasons to rejoice tonight. It's a great victory.'

In his victory speech in St. Paul, Minnesota, 32,000 people thunderously greeted the presumptive nominee. (According to officials, 17,000 were inside the stadium and as many 15,000 people listened outside.)

As he began, Obama dedicated his victory to his grandmother. 'She poured everything she had into me,' he said, 'and helped to make me the man I am today.'

'Our primary season has finally come to an end,' he announced to sustained cheers.

'Thousands of miles have been traveled and millions of voices have been heard,' he said. 'Because you chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations, tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another.'

'I will be the Democratic nominee for the president of the United States of America,' he proclaimed. The elated crowd of thousands roared.

'I want to thank the men and women who took this journey with me as fellow candidates for president,' he added. He praised their talent, their leadership, and their patriotism.

'Sen. Hillary Clinton has made history in this campaign,' he emphasized. 'When we win the battle for universal health care in this country, she will be central to that victory.'

Obama rejected the notion that the primary campaign has left the Democratic Party divided and weak. The primary season brought in millions of voters who had never voted before. He also argued that the national desire for change is so strong that the campaigns could not be about any single candidate or personality.

'Let us unite to chart a new course for America,' he urged.

Obama turned his sights on John McCain who spoke earlier in the evening. McCain, mimicking many of the themes and slogans of the Obama campaign, attempted to put himself forward as the candidate of change and insisted on not being lumped together with George Bush.

Honoring his service, Obama countered, 'My differences with him are not personal; they are with the policies he has proposed in this campaign.'

Obama rejected McCain's claim to being the 'change' candidate. 'It's not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush 95 percent of the time, as he did in the Senate last year,' he said.

'It's not change,' Obama continued, 'when he offers four more years of Bush economic policies that have failed to create well-paying jobs, or insure our workers, or help Americans afford the skyrocketing cost of college – policies that have lowered the real incomes of the average American family, widened the gap between Wall Street and Main Street, and left our children with a mountain of debt.'

John McCain's support for continuing the war in Iraq and his decision to spend billions per month in Iraq 'isn't making America safer,' Obama added.

'There are many words to describe John McCain's attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush's policies as bipartisan and new. But change is not one of them,' he noted.

Obama proceeded then to define what change would mean. 'Change is a foreign policy that doesn't begin and end with a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged,' Obama fired at McCain. 'Especially at a time when our military is overstretched, our nation is isolated, and nearly every other threat to America is being ignored.'

Hitting at McCain's refusal to vote for the 21st Century GI Bill, Obama said, 'It's time to rebuild our military and give our veterans the care they need and the benefits they deserve when they come home.'

Shifting to the home front, Obama pointed out that McCain has failed to address real issues facing Americans. 'John McCain has spent a lot of time talking about trips to Iraq in the last few weeks, but maybe if he spent some time taking trips to the cities and towns that have been hardest hit by this economy – cities in Michigan, and Ohio, and right here in Minnesota – he'd understand the kind of change that people are looking for,' Obama said.

Obama defined change as rebuilding the economy, renewing public schools and making higher education a 'birthright' for every American, winning universal health care, constructing an energy policy that ends the addiction to oil and creates jobs that can't be outsourced.

'Change is building an economy that rewards not just wealth but the work and workers who created it,' he said.

Obama rejected using 'religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon' as past Republican candidates have and seem to be trying to do now.

Defining change also as making over the way politics in Washington works, Obama rejected demonizing Americans who aren't in his party. 'We are always Americans first,' he said.

Sounding a theme of unity, Obama said, 'behind all the labels and false divisions and categories that define us; beyond all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington, Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again.'

Recalling the struggles of the founders of the country, those who fought the civil war to end slavery, working people who stood out on the picket lines, women who won the right to vote, the men and women who stoop up and sat in for civil rights, Obama linked the concerns and hopes of all Americans to a legacy of democracy. 'So it has been for every generation that faced down the greatest challenges and the most improbable odds to leave their children a world that's better, and kinder, and more just,' he said.

Today is no different from the past, he suggested. '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.'

It is a difficult struggle, he said, but together we can face it. '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. 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.'

--Reach Joel Wendland at