Clintons back Obama nomination

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REMARKABLE MOMENT

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 organizer in Chicago.

Four years ago he gave a stirring keynote speech to the Democratic national convention as just a candidate for Senate 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 in her bruising primary battle with Obama and in an effort to encourage party unity, delegates had earlier granted the symbolic gesture of nominating Clinton herself 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.

Obama's nomination formally set the 47-year-old first-term senator on track to face McCain in the November 4 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, claimed the Democratic candidate was too inexperienced to serve as 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.

An eventful day at the Democratic National Convention was to conclude with a speech by Obama's vice presidential running mate, Sen. Joe Biden after his nomination for the position.

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