Obama accepts, vows change

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By Christina Bellantoni

UPDATED:

DENVER -- Barack Obama on Thursday night completed his historic journey from a freshman lawmaker with soaring oratory to America's first black major-party presidential candidate, accepting the Democratic nomination and promising a stadium full of supporters a bold change that would fix "the broken politics of Washington" after years of Republican rule.

With the granduer of the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop, Mr. Obama seized his chance to tell the entire nation in detail how he would change course from President Bush on issues as diverse as energy independence, national security and economic growth and to separate himself from the ideas of the more seasoned Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain.

"America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this," Mr. Obama told an estimated 80,000 cheering and flag-waving fans who streamed into the cavernous Invesco Field at Mile High to witness history.

FULL TEXT:Barack Obama's speech

Alternating between the evocative and the pragmatic, the Illinois Democrat laid clear blame for the country's current wartime predicaments of high gas prices, soaring deficits and failing mortgages on President Bush.

"These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed presidency of George W. Bush," Mr. Obama charged.

"Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and independents across this great land enough! This moment -- this election -- is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive," he said.

"Next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look just like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: 'Eight is enough,' " he said.

With his acceptance, Mr. Obama, 47, shattered a once-unthinkable barrier in becoming the first black American to win a major-party presidential nomination and doing so just a half-century since some states would have treated him as a second-class citizen in terms of voting and public accommodations.