Obama vows to reverse Bush-McCain legacy

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

DENVER (Reuters) - Barack Obama launched a sharp assault on Republican presidential rival John McCain on Thursday with a promise to reverse the economic failures of the past eight years and restore America's global reputation.

The first black presidential 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. standing in the world.

"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 Democratic nomination on the last night of the party convention.

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

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

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty were among the potential picks for McCain, who celebrates his 72nd birthday on Friday. He would be the oldest person elected president for a first term.

Obama and running mate Joe Biden also were scheduled to hit the campaign trail after Obama delivered his 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.

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 U.S. 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 gave the first-term Illinois senator his biggest national audience until he meets McCain in late September in the first of three debates. The two are running neck-and-neck in polls.

MCCAIN FIGHTS BACK

After the speech, the McCain campaign fought back.

"Tonight, Americans witnessed a misleading speech that was so fundamentally at odds with the meager record of Senator Obama," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement. "The fact remains, Obama is still not ready to be president."