Rinku Sen

Making History, Barack Obama Accepts Nomination

I’m in the Big Tent where all the bloggers are, well those who aren’t on the convention floor. Hillary Clinton, who had garnered about 340 delegate votes by then, just moved to end the roll call vote and nominate Barack Obama by acclamation. The Big Tent went crazy loud with people screaming. Nancy Pelosi immediately moved to take the vote – someone in here was yelling Aye! - and within 60 seconds Barack Obama was the nominee. Now Pelosi is announcing that Obama is the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. He accepts! There was a lot of doubtful talk even as of yesterday as the Clinton campaign carried on until the last possible moment. On the street, I heard two white ladies – the very sort who are supposedly so upset with a Clinton loss – saying that they were ready to move on and thought Clinton should be too. Clinton prepared the vote with last night’s speech, in which she said “I support Barack Obama for President” no less than six times directly, and many more times indirectly. Incidentally, in the two hours I was on the floor yesterday, Clinton was the only one to consistently evoke racial justice images. However we feel about her calling up Harriet Tubman, repeating Grandma Moses’ call to keep going, even if you see the dogs or slave catchers chasing you, worked terrifically on that crowd.

Posted at 4:23 PM, Aug 27, 2008 in At The Scene | Elections | Permalink | View Comments