Obama: "We are a better country than this"

By John Whitesides, DENVER (Reuters) - Declaring "we are a better country than this," Barack Obama launched a sharp assault on Republican presidential rival John McCain on Thursday, promising to reverse the economic failures of the past eight years and restore America's reputation in the world.

Obama, the first black White House nominee of a major U.S. party, linked McCain directly to President George W. Bush and said their failed Republican policies were responsible for a faltering U.S. economy and a decline in U.S. global standing.

"We are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look just like the last eight," Obama told a flag-waving crowd of about 75,000 supporters in Denver's open-air football stadium as he accepted the nomination on the last night of the Democratic convention.

"On November 4th, we must stand up and say: 'Eight is enough,'" Obama said.

Obama delivered the biggest speech in a career filled with big speeches on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech -- a landmark in the U.S. civil rights movement.

The speech kicked off a two-month sprint to the November 4 general election against McCain, who tried to steal the limelight with word that he had chosen his running mate and will appear with the choice on Friday in Ohio.

Obama said McCain, an Arizona senator, was out of touch with the day-to-day concerns of Americans and had been "anything but independent" on key issues like the economy, health care and education.

"Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know," said Obama, who had been urged by some Democrats to take a tougher line against McCain.

"Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush was right more than 90 percent of the time?" Obama asked, citing McCain's voting record in the Senate.

"I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change," he said.

The televised acceptance speech by Obama, who was formally nominated on Wednesday, gave
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