Fargo ND, Despite a loss to Hillary Clinton in South Dakota, the Illinois senator and one-time long shot managed to win the support of enough pledged delegates and superdelegates tonight to clinch the Democratic Party nomination and become the first-ever black nominee of a major political party in U.S. history.
For months on the campaign trail, the former first lady told voters that with their help she would make history, but in the end it was the young, first-term senator from Illinois that voters helped do just that.
"Because you chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears, but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations, 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 said as the audience at the Xcel Energy Center roared. "Because of you, tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for the President of the United States."
The crowd at tonight's rally, numbering some 32,000 people -- 17,000 inside and 15,000 outside -- was well aware of the significance of the moment. They spent almost as much time cheering, chanting and clapping as Obama did speaking. Once every minute or so during his roughly half hour remarks, they interrupted with thunderous applause and periodic chants of "Yes we can" and "Si Se puede."
Obama thanked his family, his staff, his volunteers and supporters and he dedicated his moment to his grandmother, who was at home in Hawaii because she cannot travel, saying she "poured everything she had into me" and that she "helped to make me the man I am today."
He praised his former rivals, saying he had learned from them, and he congratulated Clinton on her win in South Dakota. He hailed Clinton for the "barrier-breaking" campaign she ran and the support she received.
"Sen. Hillary Clinton has made history in this campaign. She has made history not just because she’s a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she is a leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight. I congratulate her on her victory in South Dakota and I congratulate her on the race that she has run throughout this contest," he said to more cheers. "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."
It was his big win in Iowa that set Obama on this long and winding road, a win his chief strategist, David Axelrod, spoke about while taking questions briefly with reporters on the plane ride from Chicago.
"Going in, we believed that there was this hunger for change,” he said, “and that if we could do well in Iowa, we could ignite something that would take hold across the country, and I think that’s what happened.”
Obama also spoke of the race to come, hinting at some of the attack lines he expected from his Republican rival and acknowledging the significance of the arena where he chose to celebrate his victory. Republicans will hold their party convention here the first week in September.
"The other side will come here in September and offer a very different set of policies and positions,” Obama said, “and that is a good thing, that is a debate I look forward to. It is a debate the American people deserve. But what you don’t deserve is another election that’s governed by fear, and innuendo, and division.
“What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon. What you won't see from this campaign or this party is a politics that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize -- because we may call ourselves Democrats and Republicans, but we are Americans first. We are always Americans first."
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