Obama is 'ready to lead'

To shouts of "Yes we can," Democrats nominated Barack Obama yesterday as their presidential candidate in a historic first for a black American, backed by his ex-rivals Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Obama made his first appearance at the Democratic National Convention, stepping out on stage after his vice presidential running mate, Senator Joe Biden, attacked Republican John McCain as he accepted the nomination as No. 2 on the ticket.

"I think the convention has gone pretty well so far. What do you think?" Obama said to cheering delegates after hugging Biden and his wife Jill on stage.

Former President Bill Clinton, who has been slow to warm to Obama after his wife lost a bruising primary battle, worked to encourage party unity by giving Obama an unwavering seal of approval in a speech to a packed convention hall.

Delegates cheered Clinton's appearance for so long that he asked them to sit down.

"My fellow Democrats, I say to you: Barack Obama is ready to lead America and to restore American leadership in the world," the former president told flag-waving delegates who interrupted him repeatedly with roars of approval.

"Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States," he said.

Biden laid down withering fire on McCain that some Democrats have said has been lacking. He specifically cited McCain's opposition to Obama's demand for setting a timetable for withdrawing US troops from Iraq and said even the Bush administration and the Iraqi government were on the verge of setting a date to bring troops home.

"John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was right," Biden said.

As they passed the torch to Obama, the Clintons were in the spotlight.

In an earlier, emotional show of unity, Senator Hillary Clinton strode onto the floor of the party's national convention during a roll call of the states and formally asked Democratic delegates to suspend their count and approve Obama's nomination by acclamation.

"With eyes firmly fixed on the future, in the spirit of unity, with the goal of victory, with faith in our party and our country, let's declare together in one voice right here, right now, that Barack Obama is our candidate and he will be our president," she said to raucous cheers.

Her request was quickly accepted by the convention's presiding official, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

When Pelosi pounded a gavel to declare Obama the nominee, delegates held hands together up high, danced and swayed back and forth to the song "Love Train" in celebration.

"Yes we can," the crowd chanted. "Obama!"

It was a remarkable moment for Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and white mother from Kansas who was raised in humble beginnings and began his relatively short political career as a community organiser in Chicago.

Four years ago he gave a stirring keynote speech to the Democratic national convention as a US Senate candidate with no national experience. But that speech propelled him in a rapid political rise that ended with the nomination.

In honour of Clinton's tenacity and to try to encourage party unity, delegates had earlier granted the gesture of symbolically nominating Clinton for the candidacy.

The Clintons' coordinated moves to help Obama could prove important toward binding the wounds from the Clinton-Obama battle that split the two camps and left some Clinton supporters vowing not to support Obama.

It could also help Hillary Clinton avoid blame should Obama lose to McCain this year and position herself as the go-to Democratic candidate in the 2012 election.

In any event Obama was pleased, saying Hillary Clinton had "rocked the house" in her speech on Tuesday and that Bill Clinton "reminded us of what it's like when you actually put people first."

Obama's nomination formally set the 47-year-old senator on track to face McCain in the 4 November election in a race that has been neck-and-neck for weeks, with McCain's Republican nominating convention to take place next week in the Minnesota city of St. Paul.

Bill Clinton, a master politician who stumbled this year in trying to help his wife, noted that when he first ran for president in 1992, Republicans then, as now, suggested the Democratic candidate was too inexperienced to be president.

"Sound familiar? It didn't work in 1992 because we were on the right side of history, and it will not work in 2008 because Barack Obama is on the right side of history," he said.

Obama, who would be the first black US president, arrived in Denver to prepare for his acceptance speech on Thursday to a crowd of about 80,000 people at the Denver Broncos' pro football stadium.