Clinton: 'No way, no how, no McCain'

DENVER - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton answered skeptics Tuesday night by issuing a ringing call for her supporters to rally behind Sen. Barack Obama, saying Democrats cannot afford to stay home in November and let another Republican administration ruin the economy.

“Barack Obama is my candidate,” Clinton said in the final speech of the second night of the convention that will nominate Obama for president.

“No way, no how, no McCain,” she declared in a speech that both blasted the presumed Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and put forth Obama, her colleague from Illinois, as the man “who must be our president.”

Much of the speculation leading into the Democratic National Convention had centered on how firmly Clinton, the junior senator from New York, would go to bat for Obama, who narrowly edged her for the Democratic nomination in an extraordinarily contentious primary season.

Fire marshals closed the convention floor, which was packed to capacity with Clinton supporters who cheered long and loudly for their candidate. Clinton reserved special gratitude for them and the 18 million other voters who backed her in her primary campaign against Obama.

“To my supporters, my champions — my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits — from the bottom of my heart: Thank you. Thank you,” she said. “You never gave in. You never gave up. And together we made history.”

'Time to take back the country we love'
But she told those supporters that it was time to take all of their energy and enthusiasm and channel it into electing Obama.

“My friends, it is time to take back the country we love,” she said. “Whether you voted for me or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose.

“We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines,” she added. “This is a fight for the future. And it’s a fight we must win.”

The McCain campaign responded immediately, saying in a statement that “nowhere tonight did [Clinton] say that Barack Obama is ready to lead. Millions of Hillary Clinton supporters and millions of Americans remain concerned about whether Barack Obama is ready to be president.”

The role of Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, is considered a crucial factor to the success of a convention that remained divided between Obama and Clinton loyalists.

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Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, one of Hillary Clinton’s closest advisers, and other Democrats signaled Tuesday that they were confident that the senator would fall in line, but they were less certain about the former president, who is scheduled to address the convention Wednesday night. Obama angered the Clintons during the campaign season with dismissive comments that some Clinton backers said painted the former president as naively racist.

Aides to both candidates said that Bill Clinton had not finished writing his speech and that no one in the Obama camp knew what he was going to say.

“I don’t know about the president. I haven’t spoken to the president in a while,” Rendell said. “But Hillary is on board.”

Deep strains remain. With McCain drawing closer to Obama — even within the margin of error in some polls — an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed that Obama was drawing the support of only half of Clinton voters.

In the poll, which was released last week, 21 percent of Clinton supporters said they planned to vote for McCain and 27 percent said they were undecided or wanted to vote for someone else. That meant only 52 percent of Clinton’s backers said they would vote for Obama.

Clinton message welcomed
But New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Clinton administration official who surprised the Clintons by endorsing Obama, welcomed Clinton’s words as “a strong signal that will unify the party.”

“She couldn’t have been clearer: She’s firmly behind Senator Obama,” Richardson said. “She hit a 500-foot home run.”

Besides sending a message to her supporters, Richardson said, the speech also “may have been a signal to her husband that it’s time to get behind Senator Obama.”

Former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said Clinton gave “a big, big speech tonight,” laying out “in compelling terms” why her supporters should rally around Obama.

“I don’t believe there’s a Clinton supporter ... who was not proud of her and, more importantly, is not ready to go out and work for Barack Obama,” Ford said.

Sen. Joe Biden, who Obama revealed as his running mate on Saturday, described Clinton's speech as “tremendous.”

“I spent 20 minutes with her afterwards,” he said. “She hit it out of the park.”

Obama watched Clinton’s speech on television with a Democratic family in Billings, Mont. Afterward, he told Clinton by telephone that she had given a “terrific speech,” Obama aides said.

Aides said Obama also spoke with Bill Clinton for several minutes. He said he was grateful for the Clintons’ support and said he knew how proud the former president must have been watching his wife as he was Monday night watching his own wife, Michelle, speak.

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