Obama secures Democratic nod

— -- Sen. Barack Obama, capping a seemingly improbable journey by a freshman senator from Illinois, clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday night and promised to offer "a new direction for the country we love."

The 46-year-old Obama, the first black candidate to lead his party into a fall campaign for the White House, faces Republican Sen. John McCain, 71, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, in the race to become the 44th U.S. president.

"Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another — a journey that will bring a new and better day to America," Obama said told a raucous rally in St. Paul. "Tonight I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States."

Obama wrapped up the nomination with delegates picked up in the South Dakota primary and Montana.

The victory came on a whirlwind day that brought a signal from his chief rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, that she would be open to joining his ticket as a vice presidential candidate.

Clinton, speaking in New York City only minutes before Obama, offered something of a valedictory that traced the steps of the long campaign without conceding that the race was over.

"This has been a long campaign and I will be making no decisions tonight," she told a wildly enthusiastic crowd in Manhattan. She said she would be consulting supporters and party leaders in the days ahead to determine her next move.

A final wave of pledges from superdelegates set up Obama's victory by allowing the results of the last contests to put him over the "magic number" of 2,118.

The Associated Press declared Obama the winner in Montana and Clinton the winner of the South Dakota contest.

As of 10:20 p.m. ET, with 48% of the precincts in South Dakota reporting, Clinton led Obama 56% to 44%.

In his remarks, Obama wasted no time in trying to unite a party fractured by 16 months of intense campaigning. He singled out Clinton for considerable praise.

He said 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."

Though noting that the two contenders "certainly had our differences" during the campaign, Obama said the senator from New York was driven by "an unyielding desire to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, no matter how difficult the fight may be. "

"Our party is better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton," he said.

Obama then took direct aim at McCain, who will be nominated in September by the Republican Party in the same convention center where Obama spoke Tuesday night.

"While John McCain can legitimately tout moments of independence from his party in the past, such independence has not been the hallmark of his presidential campaign," Obama said. "It's not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush 95% of the time, as he did in the Senate last year."

Obama promised to draw a sharp distinction from McCain and the Republicans in the fall campaign.

"The other side will come here in September and offer a very different set of policies and positions, and that is a debate I look forward to. It is a debate the American people deserve," he said. "But what you don't deserve is another election that's governed by fear and innuendo and division."

He pledged to eschew the kind of politics that "uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon — that sees our opponents not as competitiors to challenge, but enemies to demonize."

Obama planned to hit the general election campaign trail with a speech Wednesday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby, and a rally Thursday in Virginia, one of the traditionally conservative "red states" his team hopes it can pick off in November.

McCain, in a speech in New Orleans Tuesday night, was in a sparring mood, saying he agreed with Obama that the presidential race would focus on change.

"But the choice is between the right change and the wrong change, between going forward and going backward," he said.

McCain said the Obama campaign would rather try to tie him to President Bush "than debate honestly the very different directions he and I would take the country."

"But the American people didn't get to know me yesterday, as they are just getting to know Sen. Obama," McCain said. "They know I have a long record of bipartisan problem solving. They've seen me put our country before any president, before any party, before any special interest, before my own interest."

The issue of a vice presidential pick surfaced in a conference call Tuesday between Clinton and several New York lawmakers when the former first lady said she would be open to running for the No. 2 spot with Obama if it would help Democrats win the White House.

The senator's remarks came in response to a question from Rep. Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., who said she believed the best way for Obama to win over key voting blocs, including Hispanics, would be for him to choose Clinton as his running mate.

Velázquez said Clinton stressed in the conversation that she was "open to doing whatever she could to ensure that Obama defeated John McCain." And that, Velázquez said, includes taking the vice presidential slot "if it is offered, if she is asked."

In her remarks Tuesday night, Clinton addressed the issue of where her campaign goes from here.

"A lot of people are asking, 'What does Hillary want? What does she want?'" she told the crowd. "I want what I have always fought for in this campaign — I want to end the war in Iraq, I want to turn this economy around, I want healthcare for every American, I want every child to live up to his or her God-given potential."

"And I want the nearly 18 million people who voted for me to be respected to be heard and no longer to be invisible," she said.

The senator also congratulated Obama and his team on the "extraordinary race" that they have run and for inspiring large numbers of people to get involved in politics.

"Our party and democracy is stronger and more vibrant as a result so we are grateful," she said. "It has been an honor to contest these primaries with him, just as it is an honor to call him my friend."

By midafternoon, Obama's victory for the nomination seemed almost anticlimactic amid a flood of superdelegates publicly declaring their support.

House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., a superdelegate who officially endorsed Obama in the morning, said Clinton dropping out of the race would be "just a technicality."

When asked whether Obama should pick Clinton as vice president, he said, "I would not be insulted by that."

Asked whether that would promote party unity, Clyburn replied, "Unity does not mean unanimous. It does not mean uniform. I don't care who he picks, somebody will not be satisfied."

Among many supporters of both candidates, the talk Tuesday shifted to the issue of combining two aggressive campaign teams that have been slugging it out as adversaries for over a year.

Former Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey, head of the New School for Social Research in New York City and a Clinton supporter, says Obama has a delicate task in trying to integrate Clinton into his campaign.

When a primary candidate loses "whatever hard feelings you've got inside of you, you've got to subordinate them to the larger cause. I don't think she'll have any difficulty doing that," Kerrey said.

Kiely reported from the Obama campaign; Schouten reported from the Clinton campaign.

Contributing: Martha T. Moore in New York City, Douglas Stanglin in McLean, Va., Associated Press