Obama clinches Democratic nomination

By Scott Helman, Globe Staff

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Making history and promising change for the future, Senator Barack Obama clinched the Democratic Party nomination tonight, setting the stage for an intense five-month campaign against Republican John McCain that will offer voters starkly different visions for the country.

After a flood of endorsements from party leaders and enough delegates in today's final primaries in Montana and South Dakota, Obama finally reached the threshold to formally declare victory over Senator Hillary Clinton, becoming, nearly 16 months after launching his improbable campaign, the first-ever African-American presidential nominee.

Obama and his supporters basked in their watershed win tonight at a highly choreographed, emotional celebration in downtown St. Paul. It was both a fitting capstone for the race just concluded -- a hard-fought, cross-country primary contest over five frenetic months -- and a tidy preview of the battle to come, as Obama spoke at the very venue where McCain will accept the GOP nomination in September.

"Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another -- a journey that will bring a new and better day to America," Obama told supporters gathered at the Xcel Energy Center. "Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States."

Obama wasted little time in kicking off that new journey, aggressively attacking McCain's positions on the economy, on Iraq, and on foreign policy.

"I’ll say this -- there are many words to describe John McCain's attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush’s policies as bipartisan and new," Obama said. "But change is not one of them."

Following a day of uncertainty about how Clinton would respond to Obama's victory, Clinton congratulated Obama tonight for the inspiring race he has run and said she was "committed to uniting our party," but stopped short of conceding defeat.

Clinton also expressed an openness among supporters earlier today to being Obama's running mate, an outcome many Democratic voters have said they favor. But while Obama has said Clinton would "be on anyone's short list," it is far from clear whether he and his campaign will want her on the ticket -- or whether she really wants the job.

Despite the bitterness that grew between the two campaigns, Obama's words for Clinton tonight were deeply conciliatory. He called her a "leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight."

"We’ve certainly had our differences over the last sixteen months," Obama said. But, he said, "Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Obama's comments underscored the delicate balance he struck in recent weeks as it became increasingly probable that he would win the nomination. He had to begin laying the groundwork for November -- with trips to general election battlegrounds and increasingly sharp attacks on McCain -- while at the same time not alienating Clinton's millions of supporters by appearing overly presumptuous.

Though Obama and McCain have already been sparring on a near daily basis, Obama's clinching of the Democratic nomination means that their race now begins in earnest, a contest that will look quite different than the one Obama has fought to this point.

As is often the case in party primaries, Obama and Clinton did not, for all their squabbles, differ significantly on policy. They both vowed to enact universal healthcare, though using different tacks. They both said they would begin bringing troops home from Iraq within their first days in office. They both championed plans to move toward energy independence, to regulate the troubled mortgage industry, and to pull back from free trade.

But a McCain-Obama race promises sharp distinctions: McCain wants to make permanent the tax cuts President Bush implemented early in his administration, while Obama wants to eliminate them to pay for his healthcare plan and other domestic programs. McCain is a strong supporter of the war in Iraq and says Obama's pledge to bring troops home amounts to "surrender." And the two candidates have fought bitterly in recent days over Obama's stated willingness to meet with leaders of rogue nations without precondition.