Barack Obama Interview: Complete Transcript

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congratulations, Senator Obama, on your victory. Does it feel like vindication?

OBAMA: Well, you know, it was a wonderful win. And the people of South Carolina, I think, were remarkable, not just in providing me a terrific margin of victory. But one of the wonderful stories was the turnout.

Sen. Barack Obama.

(ABC News)

I mean, we actually had more Democrats vote in the Democratic primary, or more individuals vote in the Democratic primary than in the Republican primary. It was 200,000 more people voting this time than last time. And I think that shows you the enormous enthusiasm you're seeing, not only for change but also for the Democratic Party right now.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And more voters, I think, voted for you last night than voted in the entire Democratic Party in 2004. Before the votes were finally counted yesterday, President Clinton was asked why it was taking both Clintons to handle you in South Carolina. Here's how he responded to our David Wright.

VIDEO CLIP B. CLINTON: Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice in '84 and '88. And he ran a good campaign, and Senator Obama's run a good campaign here. He's run a good campaign everywhere.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The implication there is pretty clear: You're the Jesse Jackson of 2008.

OBAMA: Well, you know, Jesse Jackson ran historic races in 1984 and 1988, and there's no doubt that that set a precedent for African Americans running for the highest office in the land. But, you know, that was 20 years ago, George.

And I think that what we saw in this election was a shift in South Carolina that I think speaks extraordinarily well, not just for folks in the South, but all across the country. I think people want change. I think they want to get beyond some of the racial politics that, you know, has been so dominant in the past.

We're very encouraged as we go to the February 5th states.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you think President Clinton was engaging in racial politics there?

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think that that's his frame of reference was the Jesse Jackson races. That's when, you know, he was active and involved and watching what was going to take place in South Carolina. I think that a lot of South Carolinians looked at it through a different lens.

And certainly our campaign was confident that if we talked about the things that people are really trying to deal with on a day-to-day basis. If we were talking about how to make sure everybody has health care that they can afford, how people are going to be able to go to college, making sure that people are able to stay in their homes in the face of this subprime lending crisis and the larger credit crunch that we're seeing.

As long as we were focused on those issues, we thought those would transcend the sort of racial divisions that we've seen in the past.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But several in the Clinton camp say that it was your campaign that was playing the race card throughout this primary. They point to Dick Harpootlian, one of your major supporters in South Carolina, who said that the Clinton campaign was reminiscent of Lee Atwater.

They point to the comments of one of your top advisers, Steve Hildebrand, who said that the Clintons have always put people in a box.

STEPHANOPOULOS: They look at everything through racial lines, gender lines, geographic lines. They tend to segment people.

They say that it was your campaign playing the race card.

OBAMA: George, I'm not going to continue sort of the tit-for- tat. I think that the results yesterday spoke for themselves, that people wanted to move beyond some of these old arguments, and they want to look forward to figure out how we pull the country together and move forward, and that's what we're going to do during the remainder of this campaign.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You made that point last night in your victory speech as well. You pretty directly said you wanted to move beyond the Clinton brand of politics, without saying the Clintons by name. I want to show voters some of what you said last night.

VIDEO CLIP OBAMA: We're up against decades of bitter partisanship that caused politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable or energy cleaner. It's the kind of partisanship where you're not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea, even if it's one you never agreed with.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You also said that you're up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything or do anything. Is that what you think the Clintons were doing in South Carolina? And you also used the word demonize there. Were they trying to demonize you?

OBAMA: No, I don't think they were trying to demonize me, but I do think that there is a certain brand of politics that we've become accustomed to, and that the Republican Party had perfected and was often directed against the Clintons, but that all of us had become complicit in, where we basically think anything is fair game.

And you know, during the course of this campaign, I've said very clearly, I want to run a positive campaign. But I think it's important for all of us to try to talk about policies that are actually going to make a difference in the lives of ordinary people. And as I traveled around South Carolina, whether I was talking to veterans who weren't getting their benefits or I was talking to mothers who couldn't get health care for their kids, they are eager and anxious to make sure their problems are solved. And that is the kind of approach that we want to take, and I think that's where the Democratic Party should go if we want to win in November.