The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 8/27/08 Section: News

New York Gov. David Paterson waves during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Tuesday.

DENVER - Democrats ripped into John McCain as indifferent to the plight of the working class and an ally of big oil on Tuesday, launching wave after wave of attacks from the podium of their national convention.

"If he's the answer, then the question must be ridiculous," New York Gov. David Paterson said of the Republican presidential candidate.

By contrast, said party elder Ted Sorensen, "we have the man we need at last to embrace the future, not the past, and to dispel eight years of pain and shame. Barack Obama is his name. Call the roll!"

Not yet.

Obama's formal nomination was set for Wednesday night. First came Hillary Rodham Clinton, his tenacious rival in a riveting battle for the nomination, who was closing out her own history-making quest for the White House.

Despite lingering unhappiness among some delegates nursing grievances over Clinton's loss, party chairman Howard Dean declared the convention determined to make Obama the nation's first black president.

"There is not a unity problem. If anyone doubts that, wait till you see Hillary Clinton's speech," he said.

Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner was tapped to deliver the keynote address on the convention's second night. It was the same assignment that Obama - then an Illinois state lawmaker running for the Senate - used four years ago to launch his astonishing ascent in national politics.

Obama campaigned in Missouri as he slowly made his way toward the convention city. Speaking to airline workers in a giant hangar, he accused the Bush administration of failing to enforce health and safety laws and said McCain "doesn't get it" when it comes to the concerns of blue collar workers.

There was more of the same - much more - as a parade of speakers criticized McCain at the convention several hundred miles away.

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the Republican has voted against "real sex education, voted against affordable family planning. And if elected, John McCain has vowed to appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade," she said, referring to the landmark 1973 case that affirmed women's right to abortion.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland focused on economic issues. "While families are losing sleep tonight trying to figure out some way to make their paycheck stretch through one more day, John McCain is sleeping better than ever," he said, recalling that McCain had recently said Americans were better off because of President Bush's policies.

And Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said oil companies were "placing their bets on John McCain, bankrolling his campaign and gambling with our future."

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