WASHINGTON–No one, not even the eventual candidate, knew it at the time. His attendance at the rally was not even noted in his hometown newspaper.

But Barack Obama built the foundation for his win over Hillary Clinton on a blustery morning in Chicago on Oct. 2, 2002, and his words that day could also provide the foundation for his victory over John McCain this Nov. 4.

"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences,'' the young Illinois state senator said.

"I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda.

"I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.''

A week after the speech, Clinton voted to authorize the war and now Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is facing a Republican adversary who is staking much of his campaign on a promise that America will prevail in Iraq and who even tossed out an ill-advised thought that the U.S. could be there for 100 years.

With one speech that now looks prescient, Obama provided the clearest distinction between him and Clinton while parrying arguments that he lacked experience by pointing to the Iraq fiasco as the product of more experienced Washington insiders.

In essence, he made the argument of judgment over experience, even as former president Bill Clinton once dismissed Obama's Iraq narrative as "the biggest fairy tale I have ever seen.'' The Illinois senator has promised to remove U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

Obama will win in November because the grueling struggle against Hillary Clinton launches him into the presidential election battle-tested, confirming his self-analysis: "I may be skinny, but I'm tough.''

He has proved he can meet a crisis – most notably the comments by his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright – and deal with it forcefully.

He will also win by continuing to sell himself as the candidate of change, a decision his campaign team decided early was the message to take to a nation that is weary after years of George W. Bush.

He will go to an electorate that believes the war was badly mismanaged, was "sold'' to them on false pretences and continues to tarnish America's reputation abroad.

It is a nation that is paying record high gas prices, is watching their home values plummet – if they were able to keep their homes – and feels it is falling behind.

He will be an embodiment of that change, a young African-American who will be 47 in August, running against a man who turns 72 that same month and seeks to be the oldest president ever elected.

Already, stark contrasts were drawn when the two men spoke back-to-back on national television Tuesday evening; McCain, his delivery wooden and forced before a small gathering in Louisiana, Obama eloquent and inspiring before 17,000 inside a Minnesota arena, as 15,000 more listened outside.

Obama advisers look forward to the optics of the two side-by-side on a debate stage where the Democrats' new era of politics will be on display without a word being spoken.

He enters the race with the gap between those who identify themselves as Democrats versus those who declare themselves Republicans at an all-time high.

He is running against a Republican brand so badly damaged that it's toxic, but also against a nominee with a much higher approval rating than the party he represents.

So Obama will continually tell voters McCain is running for Bush's third term.

"It's not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush 95 per cent, as he did in the Senate last year,'' Obama said this week.

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"And it's not change when he promises to continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians. There are many words to describe John McCain's attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush's policies as bipartisan and new. But change is not one of them.''

Obama will also win because he'll convince Americans a new style of international diplomacy is needed, what he calls "tough, direct diplomacy, where the president of the United States isn't afraid to let any petty dictator know where America stands and what we stand for.''

More than any factor, however, the Obama victory in November will be a product of an American electorate that knows it can make history by electing a black man, a victory that will transcend politics, become a seminal moment in the history of race relations in this country and change the way the rest of the world looks at the United States.





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