First Day

Obama rides in to a hero's welcome | theage.com.au

PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama has called for a "new declaration of independence" from bigotry, small thinking and ideology on a whistle-stop tour from Philadelphia to Washington on a vintage train, recreating president Abraham Lincoln's inaugural journey in 1861.

Despite sub-zero temperatures, tens of thousands turned out at rallies in Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore to hear Mr Obama say it would take time and sacrifice to turn the economy around.

"Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast," he said as he began the trip in Philadelphia, the city that gave birth to the American battle for independence in 1776.

"While our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not," he said.

"What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed.

"Such enormous challenges will not be solved quickly. There will be false starts and setbacks, frustrations and disappointments," he told 40,000 cheering supporters in Baltimore.

"We will be called to show patience even as we act with fierce urgency."

Several in the crowd, which was heavily African-American, wept as he took the stage.

In Delaware, where the US Constitution was first ratified, Mr Obama picked up his Vice-President-elect. A conductor called Joe Biden, "Amtrak's No. 1 commuter", because the former senator for 30 years travelled daily by train between Capitol Hill and his home to be with his sons after his first wife and daughter were killed in a car crash.

"It's not every day you get to do your daily commute with the next president of the United States of America," Mr Biden told the crowd.

Mr Obama's sombre economic message, likely to be repeated on the Capitol steps tomorrow, could be partially drowned out by the jubilation sweeping Washington.

Thousands of supporters began to arrive on Saturday to witness the inauguration of the first African-American president. The excitement was palpable as hundreds of people congregated at stations along the route to cheer and wave.