Obama makes pledge for a better U.S. future

Senator lays out presidential plans to restore America’s integrity

 Before an enormous, adoring crowd, Barack Obama promised a clean break from the “broken politics in Washington and the failed presidency of George W. Bush” Thursday night as he embarked on the final lap of his audacious bid to become the nation’s first black president.

“Now is not the time for small plans,” the 47-year-old Illinois senator told an estimated 84,000 people packed into Invesco Field, a huge football stadium in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

He vowed to cut taxes for nearly all working-class families, end the war in Iraq and break America’s dependence on Mideast oil within a decade.

Obama called Sen. John McCain, his Republican rival, a good man who “just doesn’t get it”— a backer of economic policies that favor the rich and a senator who “stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.”

“John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time,” he said, attempting to pre-empt his rival’s claim that he is a maverick who breaks with the administration on key issues.

Polls indicate a close race between Obama and McCain, the Arizona senator who stands between him and a place in history.

By happenstance, Obama’s big evening coincided with the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream Speech” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

“We are gathered here in this magnificent stadium in Denver because we still have a dream,” said Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who marched with King.