Former President Carter and the Democratic Party’s new guard took the Pepsi Center stage Monday to laud Barack Obama as a champion of the common man.
A sea of waving American flags and thousands of cheers greeted Carter as he walked on stage to “Georgia on My Mind.”
Carter appeared in person after speaking during a video presentation decrying the plight of hurricane-struck New Orleans. Carter compared the state of New Orleans, still struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina, with some of the impoverished countries he has visited.
Obama’s religious faith and his rise “from nowhere” to the national stage will prevent mistakes made in New Orleans from being repeated, Carter said.
Obama will put “a high priority on the rights of the working people of this country, and not just the super- rich,” Carter said in the film.
Moments later, Illinois state Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. captivated the crowd with an evocative speech that talked of the barriers Obama is breaking.
“I’m sure that Dr. (Martin Luther) King is looking down on us here in Denver, noting that this is the first political convention in history to take place within sight of a mountaintop,” Jackson said to resounding cheers.
Jackson told listeners that “every struggle has a turning point” and cited Lexington and Concord, where the American Revolution began; Appomattox, Va., where the Civil War ended; and Selma, Ala., where civil-rights marches took place.
“And so it shall be in Denver, Colorado, with the nomination of Sen. Barack Obama to be president of the United States,” Jackson said.
The crowd reacted by chanting “Obama, Obama, Obama.”
Jackson praised Obama’s work in the Illinois Senate on health care and muting lobbyists’ influence.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri credited Obama with spearheading Congress’ 2007 ethics-reform effort.
Obama called Klobuchar shortly after she was elected in 2006 in the group that helped Democrats regain control of Congress, she said.
“We weren’t even sworn in yet, and he was already determined to break the lock that lobbyists had on Washington,” Klobuchar said.
Within a few hours, he had all the new senators on the phone, she said. By the time she reached Washington, “We had an ethics-reform plan in place.”
The ethics-reform bill passed in 2007.
McCaskill said Obama would protect the rights of women and workers and said he is able to bridge partisan differences.
“In Missouri, we have a ringside seat to the real America,” McCaskill said. “It’s time for someone who understands the real America.”
