(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-27 15:06

DENVER - Hillary Rodham Clinton had a simple message Tuesday for her still loyal supporters: This election isn't about her.

US Senetor Hillary Rodham Clinton waves at the crowed after her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, introduces her at the Democratic National Convention in Denver,Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008. [Agencies]

The former first lady ceded the nomination that was almost hers in a prime-time speech to Democratic delegates, closing another chapter in a long, improbable political career that took her from supportive spouse to political powerhouse.

She was warmly embraced by delegates split between herself and Barack Obama in the primary. Any who were still angry over her loss were drowned out in applause when she opened her speech by declaring herself "a proud supporter of Barack Obama."

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She exhorted her backers - "my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits," she called them - to remember who was most important in this campaign.

"I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?" she said. She urged them instead to remember Marines who have served their country, single mothers, families barely getting by on minimum wage and other struggling Americans.

"You haven't worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership," Clinton told the delegates. "No way. No how. No McCain."

The line drew applause from Obama, who was watching on television from Billings, Mont., with supporters and reporters.

Clinton spoke on the eve of the delegate roll call in which both she and Obama will be nominated for president. But under a deal between the two camps, only some delegates will get the opportunity to cast a historic vote for either a woman or a black man before the split decision will be cut off in favor of unanimous consent for Obama.

Advisers to Clinton and Obama sent a joint letter Tuesday night instructing state delegation chairs to distribute vote tally sheets to delegates Wednesday and return them by 4 pm local time, just as the vote is scheduled to get under way.

The letter said Clinton would have one nominating speech and two seconding speeches, followed by Obama's nominating speech and three seconding speeches - totaling no more than 15 minutes for each candidate. Then the roll call will begin, said the letter signed by Obama senior adviser Jeff Berman, Clinton senior adviser Craig Smith and convention secretary Alice Germond.

Still, many details were unclear - which states would get a chance to vote, whether Clinton herself would cut it off in acclamation for Obama and if floor demonstrations would be tolerated.

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