Convention spotlight shifts to Bill Clinton, Biden

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By the Associated Press | Wednesday, August 27, 2008 8:54 AM CDT | () comments

Former President Bill Clinton listens Tuesday night to his wife U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., address the Democratic National Convention in Denver (AP Photo)

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., addresses the Democratic National Convention in Denver. (AP Photo)

UPDATED: DENVER — Democrats were using the one-two punch of Hillary and Bill Clinton to unify their party against Republicans and argue that the nation would be safer — its economy as well as its citizens — under a Barack Obama administration.

Anticipating tonight’s focus on national security at the Democratic National Convention, Republican John McCain contended in a new TV ad that Obama showed he was “dangerously unprepared” for the White House when he described Iran as a “tiny” nation that didn’t pose a serious threat.

“Iran. Radical Islamic government. Known sponsors of terrorism. Developing nuclear capabilities to ’generate power’ but threatening to eliminate Israel,” says the ad, which was being run in key states. “Terrorism, destroying Israel — those aren’t ’serious threats“’?

Missing from the ad was the context of Obama’s remarks last May in which he compared Iran and other adversarial governments to the superpower Soviet Union. “They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us,” he said in arguing for talks with Iran. “You know, Iran, they spend one-100th of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance.”

The McCain ad signaled a shift from trying to stir up Hillary Clinton’s supporters with her primary-season criticism of Obama to raising fears about Obama’s ability to handle international threats. Clinton closed the book on her 2008 presidential bid Tuesday night with an emphatic plea for the party to unite behind Barack Obama.

The Democratic convention spotlight was turning to her husband, the former president, as he prepared to take the prime-time television stage tonight. He is expected to launch attacks on McCain and on the Bush administration, particularly on the state of the U.S. economy.

Delaware U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, Obama’s choice as a running mate, will get prime-time exposure as well.

Hillary Clinton, who won 18 million votes but still failed to earn her party’s nomination, planned to meet with delegates who still want to cast ballots for her during the nominating roll call tonight — a symbolic move before Obama is nominated, presumably by acclamation. Clinton has not indicated whether she would have her name placed in nomination or seek a formal roll call vote.

Clinton’s aides said it remained unclear how exactly the meeting with the delegates would play out, or how her supporters will react.

“It’s not Hillary’s job to bring this party together,” said Jennie Lou Leeder, a Clinton delegate from Llado, Texas. “It’s Barack Obama’s job to bring this party together.”

It’s the kind of talk that Clinton tried to discourage. “I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?” she said Tuesday night in her convention speech, addressing her supporters.

Clinton used her prime-time convention appearance to try to silence infighting over how to honor Clinton’s campaign without distracting from Obama’s upcoming contest against McCain.

“Barack Obama is my candidate, and he must be our president,” she said.

Even so, bringing the Democratic Party together is going to take more than a single speech. The best unifier among Democrats going into the final sprint might just be McCain.

“Arizonans are also proud of their political tradition, from Barry Goldwater to Mo Udall to Bruce Babbitt. There’s a pattern here,” Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano told delegates Tuesday as part of the chorus eviscerating McCain. Goldwater, Udall and Babbitt all sought the presidency; none succeeded.

“Speaking for myself, and for at least this coming election, this is one Arizona tradition I’d like to see continue,” Napolitano said.

Republicans, meanwhile, struggled for a bit of the spotlight. On Wednesday, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the keynote speaker for the Republican convention next week, said that Hillary Clinton never told delegates that Obama was prepared for the presidency.

“Nowhere in that speech did she answer the question about his character, his ability to lead, the things that are at issue here,” Giuliani said on “The Early Show” on CBS. “And until she does, you’re going to have a lot of Hillary Clinton supporters that are either not going to vote ... or are going to vote for John McCain.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a potential running mate for McCain, also came to Denver and said Tuesday, “Barack Obama is a charming and fine person with a lovely family, but he’s not ready to be president.”

Bill Clinton, whose reputation took some hits during the primary season, stayed away from his wife and daughter Chelsea — who introduced her mother on stage Tuesday evening. Instead, he watched his wife’s speech from convention floor box seats.

“She was great,” Clinton told The Associated Press as he left the convention hall. “Weren’t you proud of her?”

Obama, 47, formally receives the nomination today. He delivers his acceptance speech Thursday night at a football stadium. An estimated 75,000 tickets have been distributed for the event, meant to stir comparisons with John F. Kennedy’s appearance at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960.

McCain and his yet-unnamed running mate are scheduled to receive their nomination at the Republican convention in Minneapolis next week.

Clinton says election isn't about her

EARLIER STORY: DENVER — Hillary Clinton had a simple message Tuesday for her still loyal supporters: This election isn’t about her.

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.”

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 from Billings, Mont.

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.

But at the 11th hour, 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.

The dealmaking and lack of direction left Clinton supporters frustrated. Clinton fueled confusion by refusing to publicly instruct her delegates how to vote, though she said she’ll back Obama when the time comes. She planned to meet with her delegates Wednesday.

All the Clintons, a longtime royal family of Democratic politics, were on hand to pass the torch to Obama. Clinton was introduced by her daughter Chelsea, while her husband watched from a box seat above the Arkansas delegation. Not everyone with a ticket could get in to hear Clinton after fire marshals declared the hall filled to capacity.

The convention hall was brimming with delegates wearing Clinton gear. There were Hillary T-shirts, buttons and stickers. Some delegates brought signs promoting Clinton for president. Many wore white shirts to mark the 88th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

“My mother was born before women could vote,” Clinton reminded them. “But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for president.”

The Obama campaign gave Clinton her due. Before she took the stage Tuesday night, Obama’s campaign distributed “Hillary” signs throughout the Pepsi Center. But only sentences into Clinton’s speech, those signs were quickly swapped out for others proclaiming either “Obama” or “Hillary” on one side, and “Unity” on the other.

Some Clinton delegates weren’t ready for so quick a pivot.

“We love you Hillary!” some shouted.

Jennie Lou Leeder, a Clinton delegate from Llado, Texas, said Clinton “was so good tonight, I was crying.”

Did her speech help to unify the party?

“It’s not Hillary’s job to bring this party together,” Leeder said. “It’s Barack Obama’s job to bring this party together.”

Daniel Kagan, a Clinton delegate from Englewood, Colo., said he felt pride and sadness watching Clinton speak. He was proud of her accomplishments, but saddened by the realization that her campaign was truly over.

Nevertheless, Kagan said, the speech will help to unify the party.

“I know that it’s changed attitudes,” Kagan said. “I saw some of my colleagues standing up and applauding for Obama for the first time.”

It was the culmination of an emotional day for Clinton loyalists, still wondering how the final act would play out in Wednesday’s roll call vote and whether they would have a chance to give their candidate one last show of support.

Party leaders said they feared a nationally televised floor demonstration Wednesday that would underscore party divisions.

“It seems to be a little more of a problem than I anticipated,” former Democratic Party chairman Don Fowler told the AP. “All you need is 200 people in that crowd to boo and stuff like that and it will be replayed 900 times. And that’s not what you want out of this.”