“With great humility, I accept your nomination for President of the United States,” said Sen. Obama
Almost 10,000 over its capacity of 75,000, Invesco Field was buzzing at every Obama quip. “This election has never been about me, it’s about you,” Obama insisted, to one of the many loud cheers he received that night. “Change is coming, because I’ve seen it, and I’ve lived it,” Obama continued.
Obama devoted a large portion of his speech to the consistent assaults on McCain and his links with President George W. Bush. On Bush’s “failed policies,” Obama said, “America, we are a better country than this,” maintaining that, “We are here because we love this country too much to make the next four years to look like the past eight years.”
The mass of supporters jammed in the standing-room-only field resoundingly responded chanting, “Eight is enough!”
Obama was careful not to question McCain’s patriotism, but not hesitant in criticizing his record. “We owe him our gratitude and our respect,” Obama said. After repeating the Democrats’ line that McCain has voted with Bush “90% of the time,” Obama announced, “I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to take a 10% chance on change.”
Throughout his address, Obama attempted to touch base with Americans by speaking personally to them. In regards to one of McCain’s advisers calling America a “nation of whiners,” Obama rebutted, “Tell that to the auto workers … and the military families. These are not whiners. They work hard…all without complaining. These are the Americans I know.”
“I don’t believe Senator McCain doesn’t care about Americans. He just doesn’t know,” Obama said, again painting McCain as a candidate who is out of touch with his electorate.
Another theme that Obama repeatedly touched on was that of bipartisanship and unity. “The men and women who serve in our battlefield…have not served a Red America or a Blue America… they have served the United States of America,” Obama stressed.
Finishing off his speech with reference to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech except 45 years earlier, Obama emphasized that like King, he is strongly behind the hope and change that King was advocating in the civil rights era.
“We cannot walk alone … America, we cannot turn back,” Obama said near the end of his address, capping an emotional address and one of the most historic Democratic National Conventions of U.S. history.
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