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To Obama, Rally Site Symbolic of Things to Come

Posted on: Wednesday, 4 June 2008, 06:00 CDT

By Kathy Kiely

ST. PAUL -- It was a moment that Barack Obama's longtime adviser David Axelrod had anticipated and even expected. But when it came, it was hard to fully comprehend.

"It's going to take a while for this to sink in," Axelrod said on the plane ride here, where Obama declared himself the Democratic presidential nominee. "It's almost surreal we're at this moment."

Arriving from Chicago, the 46-year-old Illinois senator celebrated his new and historic status as the Democrat's presumptive presidential nominee on the spot where his Republican rival, John McCain, will accept his party's nod this summer.

Obama, the first major-party presidential nominee of color, called his win "a defining moment" for the nation in a speech to thunderous applause at the Xcel Energy Center, site of the Republican convention.

New supporters and longtime advisers alike were exultant by the end of a campaign that has made Obama, an obscure state legislator just four years ago, his party's standard-bearer.

Axelrod said Obama's victory "says a great deal about the progress we made as a country and also a great deal about Barack Obama." In the audience, Nana Koffi, a 28-year-old immigrant from Cameroon, said in Obama he sees "what a dream means to me."

In his speech, Obama did not bask long in the moment. He quickly returned to the theme that has propelled his campaign, portraying himself as a candidate of change and McCain as a President Bush follower who has allowed his preoccupation with Iraq to distract him from domestic problems.

"John McCain has spent a lot of time talking about trips to Iraq in the last few weeks, but maybe if he spent some time taking trips to the cities and towns that have been hardest hit by this economy -- cities in Michigan and Ohio and right here in Minnesota -- he'd understand the kind of change that people are looking for," he said.

Obama's choice of the Republicans' convention hall for his final primary night party was meant to symbolize what party leaders say is a hallmark of Obama's campaign -- his ability to compete in territory once foreclosed to Democrats.

Obama will underscore his determination to compete beyond the usual Democratic strongholds later this week. He has scheduled two stops in Virginia, a state that hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.

In Minnesota, Obama is trying to reclaim a onetime Democratic stronghold that has trended Republican in recent years. In 2004, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry edged Bush by just 3 percentage points.

Obama also is making an effort to win over Democratic loyalists who supported his chief rival for the nomination. His comments about his rival Hillary Rodham Clinton have grown more conciliatory every day this week, and Tuesday night he complimented both her and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, in his speech.

"I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton," he said.

Obama will share a stage with Clinton this morning at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual legislative conference in Washington. On the schedule, a five-minute introduction separates Obama's speech from Clinton's. It was not clear whether the two candidates would take advantage of the opportunity to meet.

Axelrod said Obama and his aides have no idea how the contest with Clinton will formally end.

"We have not had back-channel communications to choreograph the rest of the week," he said.

Obama will return to his hometown of Chicago for strategy sessions this weekend, but aides said he will be back on the trail soon.

"We're going to celebrate tonight, and then we're going to wake up tomorrow and start all over again," Axelrod said. (c) Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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