US Senator John Kerry accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday, the last day of the four-day national convention.

In a speech to more than 4,300 delegates and some 15,000 Democratic lawmakers, governors and officials, Kerry said he accepted the nomination for president the United States.

"I accept your nomination for president of the United States" on behalf of the middle and those struggling to join it, and for those serving in the military and their families, and for those with great faith in the American people, he said.

Kerry talked about his life stories and career as a solider in Vietnam and in the Senate, asked American voters to "judge me by my record."

In his speech, the Massachusetts senator depicted a gloomy picture in the Untied States. "The stakes are high. We are a nation at war - a global war on terror against an enemy unlike any we have ever known before," he warned.

In the United States nowadays, wages were falling, health care costs were rising, and the middle class was shrinking, he said.

Recalling the Clinton administrations in the 1990s, Kerry said the Democratic governments balanced the budget and created 23 million new jobs, lifting millions out of poverty and the standard of living for the middle class.

If elected president, Kerry said, he would not privatize Social Security, would not cut benefits.

In an economic plan to build a "stronger America" he proposed in the speech, Kerry said he would offer new incentives to revitalize manufacturing and investment in technology and

innovation that would create good buying jobs in the future, close tax loopholes rewarding companies for shipping jobs overseas and reward companies that created and kept good paying jobs at home in the country.

He pledged to return to fiscal responsibility, with a plan to cut the deficit in half in four years, cut middle class taxes and reduce the tax burden on small business, and roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over 200,000 US dollars a year.