Senator John McCain accepted the Republican presidential nomination Thursday with a pledge to move the nation beyond “partisan rancor” and narrow self-interest in a speech in which he markedly toned down the blistering attacks on Senator Barack Obama that had filled the first nights of his convention.

Standing in the centre of an arena here, surrounded by thousands of Republican delegates, McCain firmly signaled that he intended to seize the mantle of change Obama claimed in his own unlikely bid for his party’s nomination.

McCain suggested that his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate gave him the license to run as an outsider against Washington, even though he has served in Congress for more than 25 years. “Let me just offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first-country-second crowd: Change is coming,” McCain said.

With his speech, McCain laid out the broad outlines of his general election campaign. He sought to move from a convention marked by an intense effort to reassure the party base to an appeal to a broader general election audience that polling suggests has turned sharply on Republicans and President Bush. He invoked, in one of the most emotional moments of the night, his struggles as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

McCain also returned to what has been his signature theme as a candidate, including in his unsuccessful 2000 campaign: that he is a politician prepared to defy his own party. He used the word “fight” 43 times, as he sought to present himself as the insurgent he was known as before the primaries, when he veered to the right.

... contd.