Obama, Accepting Nomination, Draws Sharp Contrast With McCain

"Tonight, Americans witnessed a misleading speech that was so fundamentally at odds with the meager record of Barack Obama," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said, even mocking the set Obama spoke in front of. "When the temple comes down, the fireworks end and the words are over, the facts remain: Senator Obama still has no record of bipartisanship, still opposes offshore drilling, still voted to raise taxes on those making just $42,000 per year and still voted against funds for American troops in harm's way. The fact remains: Barack Obama is still not ready to be president."

For all the historic significance, Obama's speech was less lofty than his earlier rhetorical forays, more specific on the policies he would pursue as president and more scathing toward McCain. He pledged a $150 billion investment to wean the nation from imported oil in 10 years, with wind and solar power, biofuels, nuclear energy, clean coal technology and domestic natural gas, ratifying the goals of the man who preceded him on the podium, Nobel laureate and former vice president Al Gore.

Obama spoke of eliminating capital gains taxes for small businesses and high-tech start-ups and cutting taxes for working families, a point he repeated twice to get it across. He promised to go through the federal budget "line by line" to eliminate programs that don't work.

He renewed his pledge to "end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan." He warned Republicans eager to portray him as weak: "We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans -- Democrats and Republicans -- have built, and we are to restore that legacy."

And he portrayed McCain again and again as the personification of a third term of President Bush.

"Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush was right more than 90 percent of the time?" Obama asked. "I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change."

The McCain campaign has been able to seize at least some attention with its vice presidential deliberations and ongoing GOP attacks on Obama's experience. McCain will announce his running mate Friday in Dayton, Ohio, as the Republicans prepare to open their own nominating convention Monday in St. Paul, Minn.

Still, Thursday's festivities were extraordinary. Not since John F. Kennedy accepted his party's nomination at Los Angeles's Memorial Coliseum in 1960 has a presidential contender thrown such a party. Invesco Field was packed with celebrities and politicians but also college students and ordinary voters who got their tickets with pledges to volunteer for the campaign. Entertainment was provided by Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder, Michael McDonald, will.i.am and John Legend.

Scoreboard contests asked the crowd to guess how much money Obama would seek to save each American for college, and to send answers by text message. In lights around the stadium, the campaign posted its Web address. And ticketholders were asked for their e-mail addresses when they signed up to attend. Obama's speech was preceded by a biographical documentary by Davis Guggenheim, the Academy Award-winning director of Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."

Gore whipped up the crowd, declaring: "We can tell Republicans and independents, as well as Democrats, why our nation needs a change from the approach of Bush, Cheney and McCain. After they wrecked our economy, it is time for a change. After they abandoned the search for the terrorists who attacked us and redeployed the troops to invade a nation that did not attack us, it's time for a change. After they abandoned the American principle first laid down by General George Washington, when he prohibited the torture of captives because it would bring, in his words, 'shame, disgrace and ruin' to our nation, it's time for a change."

But it was Obama who took some of the toughest shots at his opponent, after hearing allies urge him for weeks to hit back harder. He confronted McCain directly on the attacks that have rained on him for a month. Countering his rival's charge that he is a vacuous, pampered celebrity, he spoke of his grandmother in the secretarial pool, his mother, who once turned to food stamps to support her children, and his own work organizing unemployed steelworkers. "I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine," Obama said.

He questioned McCain's "temperament and judgment to serve as commander in chief," lashing out at Republican questioning of his patriotism. "I've got news for you, John McCain: We all put our country first," he said.