Obama steps into history

Democrat becomes the first black to lead a major-party run for the White House

DENVER -- Barack Obama, a freshman senator who defeated the first family of Democratic Party politics with a call for a fundamentally new course in politics, was nominated by his party on Wednesday to be the 44th president of the United States.

The unanimous vote made Obama the first black to become a major-party nominee for president. It brought to an end an often-bitter two-year political struggle for the nomination with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, standing on a packed convention floor electric with anticipation, moved to halt the roll call in progress so that the convention could nominate Obama by acclamation. That it did with a succession of loud roars, followed by a swirl of dancing, embracing, high-fiving and chants of "Yes, we can."

At the conclusion of Wednesday's events, Obama paid a surprise visit to the convention hall, embracing running mate Joe Biden and praising wife Michelle, vanquished foe Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton.

The historic nature of the moment quickly gave way to the political imperatives confronting Obama, who arrived in Denver on Wednesday afternoon and is to accept the nomination tonight before a crowd of 75,000 people in a football stadium.

After days in which the convention often seemed less about Obama than about the two families that have dominated Democratic politics for nearly a half-century, the Kennedys and the Clintons, he still faced a need to convince voters that he has concrete solutions to their economic anxieties and to rally his party against the reinvigorated candidacy of his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain.

In an effort to fully close out the lingering animosity from the primary season, former President Clinton -- in a speech that had been anxiously awaited by Obama's aides, given the prickly relations between the two men -- offered an enthusiastic and unstinting endorsement of Obama's credentials to be president. His message, like the messenger, was greeted rapturously in the hall.

Bill Clinton asserted -- as Hillary Clinton had when she spoke to the convention on Tuesday night -- that the nation needs to elect a Democrat to restore the damage he said President Bush had done to the country, at home and around the world.

"Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world." Clinton said. "Ready to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States."

Witnessing history

The roll call vote took place in the late afternoon -- the first time in at least 50 years that Democrats have not scheduled their roll call on prime-time television -- as Democrats sought to avoid drawing attention to the lingering resentments between Clinton and Obama delegates.

Yet the historic nature of the vote escaped no one, and sent a charge through the Pepsi Center as a procession of state delegations cast their votes and the hall, slightly empty at the beginning of the vote, became shoulder-to-shoulder with Democrats eager to witness this moment.

As planned, it fell to Clinton to put Obama over the top. He was declared the party's nominee at 6:47 p.m. eastern time after Clinton -- a light blue suit standing out in a crowd that included almost every elected New York official -- moved that the roll call be suspended and that Obama by declared the party's nominee by acclamation.

The vote was timed to conclude in time for the start of the network evening news broadcasts.

"With eyes firmly fixed on the future in the spirit of unity, with the goal of victory, with faith in our party and country, let's declare together in one voice, right here and right now, that Barack Obama is our candidate and he will be our president," Clinton said

"I move that Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois be selected by this convention by acclamation as the nominee of the Democratic Party for president of the United States," she said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, standing at the lectern, asked for a second and was greeted by a road of voices. A louder roar came from the crowd when she asked for support of the motion. When the voting was cut off, Obama had received 1,549 votes, compared with 231 for Clinton.

Remarkable journey

For Obama, the nomination -- seized from Clinton, who one year ago was viewed as the obvious favorite to win the nomination, especially against an opponent with a scant political resume -- was a remarkable achievement in what has been a remarkable ascendance. It was less than four years ago that Obama -- after serving seven years as an Illinois state senator -- became a member of the U.S. Senate. He is 47 years old, the son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya.

Obama's nomination came 120 years after Frederick Douglass became the first African-American to have his name entered in nomination at a major-party convention.

Douglass received one vote at the Republican convention in Chicago in 1888; former Sen. Benjamin Harrison of Indiana won the Republican nomination and the presidency that year.

WHAT'S NEXT: Obama is under considerable pressure to use his acceptance speech tonight to present a fuller picture of himself to Americans who might have doubts about whether he is ready to be president, and to begin presenting a picture of what he would do in the White House.