The floor of the Pepsi Center erupted in cheers and several delegates wept as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton stopped the roll call and moved that Barack Obama become the Democratic nominee by acclamation.
Moe Spencer was clearly overcome with emotion, tears welling up in his eyes just minutes after Sen. Hillary Clinton moved that the roll call end and Barack Obama – by acclamation – become the Democratic nominee.
“I needed to hear Hillary say that Obama is the nominee,” said Spencer, after tightly hugging friends around him. “I think this is resolved with everyone in this building.”
Evie Hudak, a Westminster resident and Obama supporter said the moment was “unbelievable.”
“I’ve never felt like that before,” she said among the throngs of people creeping along the crowded floor.
Sara Garcia, 60, of California had tears streamed down her face.
“Only a woman like Hillary Rodham Clinton could bring unity to this party,” said “Nobody else. She’s a class act. I’d proud of her. It took somebody with class who cares about this country to pull it together.”
Nearby, David Gilbert-Pederson, 17, of Minnesota, wept for a different reason.
“As a young person of color, it means the world to me to have an African-American accept this nomination,” Gilbert-Pederson said. “It really does mean that anything is possible.”
Gilbert-Pederson is the youngest of all 4,000 delegates.
New York delegate Donna Stempniak cast her vote on the first ballot for Clinton. “I feel committed to support her because I ran as a delegate for Hillary in my district,” said Stempniak, 56, of Lancaster, New York, a Buffalo-suburb.
But Stempniak wept after Clinton gave her delegates to Obama.
“It was very emotional, knowing that we’re not going to have a woman president,”she said. “But we will have a minority president and that’s exciting.”
Allowing New York to put Clinton’s final number of delegates on record, will heal divisions, several members of Congress said.
“If the New York delegation, the most pro-Hillary delegation, can vote unanimously for Barack Obama, it shows how unified we are,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, the senior New York senator.
Sen. Dick Durbin, perhaps Obama’s closest ally in the Senate, said that Clinton “has done a lot to heal divisions of this Party,” and that with the exception of a few, Clinton delegates would support Obama in November.
