Barack Obama tells US voters: 'this is not about me, it's about you'
Updated on 29 August 2008
Jon Snow blogs from inside the Broncos stadium where he witnessed Barack Obama's acceptance speech.
Forty-five years to the day that Martin Luther King made his "I have a dream..." speech, a Black American man was nominated and has accepted the challenge to run for the Democratic party for the US Presidency.
Barack Obama did so last night in front of a capacity crowd at the Bronco's stadium here in Denver.
We reckoned there were still 20,000 waiting outside. The security was tight, but it still felt vulnerable in the stadium.
Obama delivered a solid, holistic speech. He hit John McCain constantly, attacked him but managed it, mostly, in a non-personal way. He laid out policy from tax changes to education, pledging again to get American troops out of Iraq.
Obama spared no effort to tie McCain ino the Bush/Cheney axis. "McCain has voted more that 90 per cent of the time with Bush ... do you want 10 per cent change?"
The verdict? It was a statesman-like performance, uplifting for the faithful at times but no tear jerker. He did what so many had urged him to do.
The best line? "This election is not about ME, it's about YOU." That, at least, is what got the massive crowd going.
A Republican contact here told me his party might as well fold its tents. He predicted a 12-point bounce for the Democrats.
Sarah Smith will have much more on the speech and its aftermath tonight.
Meanwhile, I'll tell you what it all meant to Dezie Woods Jones, who was at MLK's speech 45 years ago. She recalls it and tells us what it was like to see a Black American accepting the nomination to run for the presidency of the United States of America.
