Sen. Barack Obama claimed the Democratic nomination for president in a speech in Minnesota tonight -- an historic achievement that for the first time will place an African American at the top of a major political party's ticket.
"Tonight I can stand here and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Obama declared in his speech to a raucous crowd at the Xcel Center in St. Paul.
Obama went on to praise his Democratic opponents as "the most talented, qualified field of individuals ever to run for this office" and saved special plaudits for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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Obama's nomination victory came on a night in which he and Clinton split the final two primaries: Obama winning in Montana and Clinton scoring a come-from-behind victory in South Dakota. South Dakota and Montana, which allocate a total of 31 delegates, brought the 2008 Democratic primary process to a close after five months of voting.
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Obama needed 2,118 votes to win the nomination and, according to an estimate provided by his own campaign, he stood only eight delegates away from that goal. But, with the polls closed in the South Dakota primary and Obama nearly certain to win at least nine or ten delegates based on the proportional allocation of delegates, the term "presumptive nominee" is being attached to Obama by CNN, NBC and the Associated Press.
Obama's win in Montana, along with a surge of super delegates to support him, has placed this first African-American nominee of a major political party at the top of the Democratic Party ticket. Granted, he is still eight votes shy of the nomination, but he should easily get those delegates when South Dakota's delegates are proportioned according to the vote. This Democratic primary, which started in January 2007, is now over. It is time to look towards the general election and defeating Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
As for Hillary Clinton, she did finish her campaign with a win in South Dakota. She fought a long, hard, and spirited campaign. When Hillary Clinton started her campaign, she, and her advisers, thought that the message to sell to the American people was that Hillary Clinton was the candidate of experience. That was a sensible strategy back in January 2007. Barack Obama took the message to the American people that he was the candidate of change. Change won out over experience, but only in a very close and hard-fought race between both candidates. Hillary Clinton threw just about every negative attack against Obama in her kitchen sink strategy, and Obama was able to survive it. One thing about Hillary Clinton's negative attacks--at least she threw them out in the primary, allowing the Obama campaign to deflect them. Because you can bet that the Republicans will throw ten times as many negative attacks against Obama during the general election. The Obama campaign has gone through fire here, and should be prepared to face whatever the Republicans have to throw at Obama. Hillary Clinton utilized the standard campaign fund-raising strategies of tapping corporations and major Democratic donors for money. Obama tapped average Americans for small donations of$10, $25 or even $50 through the Internet, out-raising even the Clinton fund-raising machine. This was a serious campaign of change, both with the message and how such campaigns will be funded in the future. Hillary Clinton was running a presidential campaign that may have worked in 2000 or 2004, but the disastrous eight years of Bush administration scandals, incompetence, the continuing war in Iraq, the high energy and gas prices, and the serious economic problems the United States faces, requires new modes of thinking and the running of presidential campaigns. I would say that was Hillary Clinton's big failure, whereas Barack Obama was able to see ahead and run this mode of presidential campaign.
Now we will see whether Obama can beat the Republicans under John McCain.
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