By DPA,
Denver (Colorado) : Barack Obama laid out a plan to rescue the US from “failed policies”, rebuild the military and withdraw responsibly from Iraq, in his acceptance of the Democratic Party’s nomination Thursday in Denver.
Obama, the first African-American major-party presidential nominee, charged that Republican Party candidate John McCain would merely continue US President George Bush’s unpopular administration.
Obama vowed to end US dependence on Middle East oil within 10 years “for the sake of our economy, our security and the future of our planet”.
Obama was nominated Wednesday night by the centre-left Democratic Party and accepted the nod before a throng of 75,000 people gathered at Denver’s Invesco Field.
There was little new in Obama’s speech, but his remarks took on new importance as part of a speech that set his goals as president.
Obama drove home a message that became a refrain at the four-day nominating convention in the Rocky Mountain city: that McCain is an honourable public servant who would, however, deliver a third Bush term.
“The record’s clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time,” Obama said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to take a 10-percent chance on change.”
Obama’s energy plan would include tapping natural gas reserves, safe use of nuclear power, investments in clean coal technology and a decade-long, $150-billion programme to promote “affordable, renewable sources of energy”.
Obama emphasised that more Americans are out of work or “working harder for less”, and more have lost their homes and are falling behind on their credit card bills and school tuition payments.
“America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this,” Obama said.
Obama conceded that not all of the country’s problems were Bush’s fault, but charged that the government’s “failure to respond is a direct result of broken politics in Washington” and of Bush’s failures.
“We meet at one of those defining moments – a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more,” Obama said.
He was confident that the country would restore its “promise” through the commitments of “ordinary men and women – students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors”.
“On November 4, we must stand up and say: “Eight is enough”, Obama said.
Obama lashed back at Republicans who say Democrats won’t defend the country, noting that World War II president Franklin Roosevelt and Cold War president John F. Kennedy were Democrats.
“Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t defend this country,” Obama said. “The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans – Democrats and Republicans – have built, and we are to restore that legacy.”
He pledged to end the war in Iraq “responsibly” and to “finish the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan”. Obama said he would also “restore our moral standing so that America is once more the last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom”.