U.S. senator Barack Obama clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday night, becoming the first African-American presidential nominee of a major U.S. party, U.S. TV news networks projected.
"Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States," Barack Obama said in a prepared speech to be delivered at a rally in St. Paul, Minnestoa.
Trying to unite the party as quickly as possible, he praised his rival senator Hillary Clinton.
"Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton," Obama said.
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-IL) and his wife Michelle prepare to board their plane at Chicago Midway Airport June 3, 2008, en route to his final primary night rally in St Paul. "Senator Hillary Clinton has made history in this campaign not just because she's a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she's a leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight," he said.
The event, held in the same site where Republicans will gather for their national convention this summer, also marked the beginning of Obama's general election campaign to take on his Republican opponent John McCain.
Source:Xinhua
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