Hillary Rodham Clinton made an emphatic plea for Democrats to unite behind the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama, exhorting her supporters to back her one-time rival because victory over Republican Senator John McCain “is a fight for the future and a fight we must win together.”
The former first lady skewered McCain and drew thunderous applause on Tuesday night as she coined what could become the most powerful political slogan of the fall campaign.
“No way, no how, no McCain,” she said.
Clinton’s speech probably will be the most closely scrutinized of the Democratic National Convention, a gathering that opened with great drama — full of speculation about how full-throated her support for Obama would be and whether the party could heal the divisions from the hard-fought primary campaign.
Last night, the spotlight was due to turn to her husband, as former US president Bill Clinton takes to the convention stage. He is expected to launch attacks on McCain and the administration of US President George W. Bush.
Senator Joe Biden, Obama’s vice presidential pick, will get prime-time exposure as well.
In the end, Hillary Clinton held back nothing in an inspired address that also served to launch whatever lies ahead in her political career.
“We don’t have a moment to lose or a vote to spare,” said the New York senator, writing the final chapter in a quest for the White House every bit as pioneering as Obama’s own.
She urged her loyal supporters to remember who was most important in this campaign.
“I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?” she asked.
She urged them instead to remember US Marines who have served their country, single mothers, families barely getting by on minimum wage and other struggling Americans.
“You haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership,” Clinton told the delegates.
The packed convention floor became a sea of white “Hillary” signs as she strode to the podium for her prime-time speech after being introduced by her daughter, Chelsea. The signs were soon replaced by others that read simply, “Unity.”
Calling McCain, “my colleague and my friend,” Clinton proceeded to tear into him as a voice of the past and little more than a clone of the deeply unpopular Bush.
“We don’t need four more years of the last eight years, more economic stagnation ... more war and less diplomacy,” she said.
And she congratulated herself and her campaign for bringing to the national consciousness the myriad of issues important to all Americans, women in particular.
“To my supporters, to my champions, to my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits, from the bottom of my heart, thank you,” Clinton said. “Together we made history.”
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