Clinton implores backers to support Obama

DENVER | Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton relished one final public embrace Tuesday from the millions who propelled her historic campaign, then rallied them behind the man who crushed her presidential aspirations in a rousing speech that declared “it is time to take back the country” from a failed Republican leadership.

Laying rest to a bitter primary battle that left many of her supporters - especially women - seething months later, Mrs. Clinton used her prime-time convention address to reassure her coalition of 18 million voters that Barack Obama and his running mate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. would carry on her battle for universal health care, economic growth through green jobs and renewed American prestige abroad.

She argued passionately that the Democratic ticket was a better alternative to Republican John McCain.

“You haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership. No way, no how, no McCain,” the first lady implored after being welcomed to the stage by her daughter Chelsea and an adoring, roaring crowd waving signs with her name on it.

“Barack Obama is my candidate, and he must be our president,” she said.

As her husband, former president Bill Clinton watched from a convention center box, Mrs. Clinton declared “It is time to take back the country. … We are on the same team and none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines. The time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose.”

Mr. Obama, watching the speech from the campaign trail in Montana, said his onetime rival was “outstanding.” He spoke with both Clintons on the phone to thank her for the speech.

Democrats also used the second night of their nominating convention to propel Virginia - normally an afterthought at Democratic conventions past - to the foreground of the fall election with a keynote address by former governor and current Senate candidate Mark Warner, a centrist Democrat with a proven record of winning in the South and a businessman’s pragmatism on politics.

“The race for the future is on, and it won’t be won if only some Americans are in the running,” Mr. Warner said, using themes he’s pushed on the trail for years. “It won’t be won with yesterday’s ideas and yesterday’s divisions. And it won’t be won with a president who’s stuck in the past.”

Also showcased was prolife Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, an early Obama supporter.

Story Continues →