HOWZAT

While voters have become used to Mr Obama's eloquence, last night they were also shown a glimpse of anger. "Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land enough! This moment - this election - is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive."

Acknowledging that some people regarded his rhetoric about hope and change as mere 'happy talk', Mr Obama gave his primetime audience a detailed tour of his programme. He even dared to be boring as he turned from health, education, energy and foreign policy to a discussion on tax codes.

The chief target of his speech last night was, inevitably, John McCain, with Mr Obama saying the same Republicans responsible for two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney would, at their convention next week, "ask this country for a third".

Despite Mr McCain's claim to be a maverick, Mr Obama said the Republican nominee had voted to back President Bush ninety percent of the time. "I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change," added Mr Obama to one of many ovations.

Times Archive, 1963: Let freedom ring

'All this will end one day. We will hew hope out of the mountain of despair'

• Topic: The assassination of Martin Luther King

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The Illinois Senator denounced attacks on his patriotism by reprising a line he used four years when he first burst on to the national stage with a speech at the last Democratic convention.

"The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag," he said. "They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America. So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first."

But Mr Obama also landed his own low blows, describing Mr McCain - who is 72 today - as subscribing to an "old, discredited Republican philosophy". Later, in criticising his opponent's stubborn refusal to end the Iraq war, he said: "We need a President who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past."

Mr McCain last night put out a cheeky TV advert congratulating Mr Obama on a job "well done." His campaign said it had stopped any leak of their vice-presidential pick", who will be unveiled today, in deference to the Democratic nominee's big moment

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