Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, the 46-year-old freshman senator from Illinois, ended a 16-month political marathon Tuesday, clinching enough delegates to become the first African American presidential nominee of a major political party.It was a momentous occasion in American politics not acknowledged by the country's first viable female presidential candidate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - once considered the Democratic Party's inevitable nominee - who told supporters in New York she would make no immediate decision about her future, while privately expressing interest in becoming Obama's vice presidential candidate.
Speaking to some 20,000 ecstatic supporters, Obama graciously acknowledged his former political rival as a formidable and historic candidate after he surpassed the final hurdle, amassing 2,154 delegates, 36 more than the 2,118 needed for the Democratic nomination.
That effectively ended a grueling, divisive Democratic primary race which began exactly five months ago with his surprise caucus win in Iowa and ended Tuesday with a split decision in the final two states, a 10-point loss in South Dakota to Clinton and a 15-point win in Montana.
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