From the Int Heral Trib:

"Obama, in an interview, said that "a lot of these old labels don't apply anymore."

He said he was a progressive and a pragmatist, eager to tackle the big issues like health care and convinced that the Democrats could rally independents and disaffected Republicans to their agenda.

Only then, he said, could the party achieve what it has so rarely won in modern presidential elections - a mandate to do big things.

"Senator Clinton's argument in this campaign has really been that you can't change the electoral map," he said. "That it's a static map and we are inalterably divided, so we've got to eke out a victory and then try to govern more competently than George Bush has.

"My argument is that if that's what we're settling for, after seven or eight years of disastrous policies on the part of the Bush administration, then we're not going to deliver on the big changes that are needed.""