Obama, Accepting Nomination, Draws Sharp Contrast With McCain

And he painted his opponent as the candidate who is out of touch with the lives of most Americans.

"I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans; I just think he doesn't know," Obama said. "Why else would he define middle class as someone making under $5 million a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than 100 million Americans? How else could he offer a health-care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement? It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it."

A week marked at the outset by lingering divisions between Obama's backers and those of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) concluded with the picture-perfect imagery of Obama's family and the family of his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), embracing on a stage bathed in floodlight, under a starry sky clouded only with the smoke of the fireworks. With Obama's formal nomination resoundingly requested by Clinton herself Wednesday, then seconded that night by former president Bill Clinton, the party was firmly in Obama's hands.

The nominee's wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, rushed out to join him onstage, followed by the Bidens. After the initial embrace, the girls played with the red, white and blue confetti, trying to catch the star shapes as they fell, tossing them in each other's hair. Malia playfully picked up a long blue strand of paper as her father walked toward her. He gave her a knowing look, with a slight, winking smile.

Earlier in the evening, a video tribute to King was introduced by the sole surviving speaker of the March on Washington, Rep. John Lewis (Ga.), and was followed by speeches from King's children.

"For those of us who stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, or who in the years that followed may have lost hope, this moment is a testament to the power and vision of Martin Luther King Jr.," Lewis said. "It is a testament to the ability of a committed and determined people to make a difference in our society. It is a testament to the promise of America."

Obama and Biden are to embark on a bus tour of the Midwestern battleground states Thursday, starting in Pennsylvania and winding through Ohio and Michigan.

For the Obama campaign, the acceptance speech was the final hurdle in a two-month pivot to general-election mode, a lull that had been dreaded after the breakneck pace of the primary season. Complicating the transition was the unfinished business of reconciling with the Clintons. Heading into convention week, the rift had become the dominant narrative, and unity became one of the main goals in Denver. Early in the week, it threatened to overshadow the other key tasks of introducing Obama to a national audience and drawing contrasts with McCain.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the bar was higher for the convention because Obama remains a somewhat mysterious figure to many voters, including millions of lunch-pail Democrats who backed Hillary Clinton. One breakthrough was her rousing speech on Tuesday night.

Clinton's forceful advocacy of Obama, Plouffe predicted, would be "really meaningful in the days and weeks to come."

He dismissed the tightening national polls that suggest Obama is underperforming, given Bush's abysmal approval ratings and the overall low standing of the GOP. "Democrats coalesce a little later historically," Plouffe said. "I think we have more room to grow than McCain."

Plouffe and other Obama officials have adjusted their strategies to answer Democratic criticism, becoming sharper in their attacks on McCain, getting more specific on policy and moving the candidate to more intimate settings. But they have also focused on an intricate, state-by-state plan that lays out, as Plouffe put it, "as many paths to 270" electoral votes as possible.

The campaign is so confident about Iowa and New Mexico, states that voted for Bush in 2004, that Plouffe predicted McCain would soon pull out of those battlegrounds. In Pennsylvania, he said, Democrats could show a net gain of more than 400,000 voters since the last election. Plouffe said he also was "very bullish" on Florida, where the campaign has deployed massive resources.

Staff writers Matthew Mosk, Paul Kane and Anne E. Kornblut contributed to this report.