DENVER — Hillary Rodham Clinton, accepting defeat with grace and generosity, moved to close the divide among fellow Democrats on Tuesday night by offering a forceful and unequivocal endorsement of her fierce rival, Barack Obama.
"Barack Obama is my candidate," she said to a thunderous roar from Democratic convention delegates, whose allegiance was split nearly evenly during a long and contentious primary season. "And he must be our president."
In a speech anticipated for weeks, ever since her historic bid for the White House fell agonizingly shy, Clinton urged her supporters to value party over pettiness and join her in making the Illinois senator's cause their own.
"Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose," Clinton said, as delegates waved signs reading "Hillary" on one side and "Unity" on the other.
"We are on the same team," Clinton said, "and none of us can sit on the sidelines."
She offered the briefest of kind words for Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a personal friend but also Obama's foe in the fall campaign. "He has served our country with honor and courage," Clinton said. But she quickly added, "We don't need four more years of the last eight years."
The appearance capped a day again dominated by the dynastic intrigue surrounding the New York senator; her husband, former President Bill Clinton; and their grudging eclipse by Obama and his supporters.
It came as the message emanating from the Denver convention hall abruptly pivoted from biography to an emphasis on the differences between Obama and McCain. "If he's the answer," New York Gov. David Paterson taunted from the stage, "then the question must be ridiculous."
The shift came after some Democrats griped about Monday's feel-good program, intended to leaven Obama's lofty image with glimpses of the candidate as family man. By contrast, one speaker after another took turns on Tuesday pummeling the Arizona senator -- and President Bush -- using economic issues as their club.
The theme was summed up by the red-and-white signs that delegates waved at one point: "McCain," they read. "More of the Same."
"Do we want four more years of Bush-McCain, or do we want the change we need?" asked Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who straddles the two poles of the Democratic Party as a former aide to President Clinton and a congressman from Obama's hometown of Chicago.
