Obama’s aides said they had learned from what they described as the mistake of the 2004 Democratic convention — when aides to Senator John Kerry’s campaign sought to forbid convention speakers from going after President Bush — and would use these four days to draw sharp contrasts with John McCain, particularly on the economy and McCain’s opposition to abortion rights.

“The stakes of this election will be made very clear,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist.

At the same time, acknowledging persistent voter unease with Obama, his aides said they would use speeches and presentations over the next four days, including having Al Gore introduce Obama for his acceptance speech on Thursday night, to offer a fuller biography and a more detailed plan of what he would do as President.

In interviews, Democrats arriving here said they remained confident that Obama would leave Denver at the end of the week in a strong position to beat McCain. But many Democrats made clear that a convention they had once anticipated would be a breezy celebration of Obama had turned into a more sober and consequential event.

This reflected a summer that they said demonstrated Obama’s vulnerabilities and McCain’s resilience, and the signs of lingering divisions between some supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Obama.

“Back in June and July, I truly thought he was going to blow McCain out of the water and carry 30 or 40 states,” said Donald Fowler, a former national Democratic chairman who supported Hillary in the primary. “What has happened is that Republicans have really twisted his great charisma, this electric personality, to discredit his ability, his experience, his capacity, his judgment. I fear they are about to do to him what they did to Gore.”

Discussing the days ahead, Fowler continued: “Obama has got to do some things that will shore up his ability to lead — not just to charm, but to lead. They’ve got to give credibility to his understanding of foreign policy, his ability to deal with tough people and tough questions, and his ability to be more explicit and convincing on his health care policies and energy policies.”

Dennis McDonald, the Democratic chairman of Montana, a state that Obama is trying to win from Republicans, said this was a critical opening for Obama after a month in which polls suggested the race was tightening and events in Russia and Georgia put a new spotlight on foreign affairs, creating an opening that McCain seized.

“Normally I might say these conventions are not so important, but I don’t think that’s the case this year,” McDonald said. “There seems to be a sense of urgency. We have had a couple of weeks that were not so good.”

For the most part, this is a confident if slightly anxious party. And many Democrats were cheered by the choice of Joseph R Biden Jr of Delaware as Obama’s running mate, saying he had the potential to help address some of Obama’s political shortcomings.

Still, Democrats said Obama should offer a concrete idea of what he would do as President, to counter the effort by Republicans to present him as a showman.

“I think in the case of McCain, they need to frame him,” said Kerry, an early Obama supporter, who four years ago was this party’s presidential nominee. “Viscerally, my feeling is they’ve got to come back at him hard.”

There are some things that may be beyond the control of the Obama campaign. Most pressing, Democrats said they were worried that the tensions between supporters of Hillary and Obama would spill into public view after her name is entered into nomination, particularly after Obama bypassed Clinton in choosing Biden.

Several Democrats said they feared that even a clash between a small handful of Clinton and Obama supporters would draw disproportionate attention from news media outlets on the search for just this kind of tension.

The Obama campaign has created a rapid response team — led by Craig Smith, a former top operative in the Clinton world — to go to the convention floor at the first sign of trouble from Hillary supporters on the floor.

SCHEDULE

Democratic Convention,

August 25-28

WHERE

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: Pepsi Center, Denver, Colorado

Thursday: Invesco Field, Mile High; home of Denver Broncos of the NFL. Stadium can seat 75,000 people, this is where Obama will make his acceptance speech

WHEN

Convention begins late on Monday. Denver is 11 and a half hours behind Indian Standard Time.

PRIME-TIME

Monday: MICHELLE OBAMA, wife of Barack Obama, on ‘One Nation’. Will focus on Obama’s life story.

Tuesday: HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York Senator, on ‘Renewing America’s Promise’. Speeches will discuss economic issues.

Wednesday: JOE BIDEN, Vice-Presidential nominee, on ‘Securing America’s Future’. Theme of the day:national security.

Thursday: BARACK OBAMA, Presidential nominee, on ‘Change You Can Believe In’. This will be Obama’s acceptance speech, delivered at the Invesco Stadium.

STAR GUEST

Liberal icon and Massachusetts Senator EDWARD KENNEDY (76), the longest-serving member of the current US Senate, who is battling brain cancer. His speech is ready, and he is very likely to speak.

REPUBLICAN CONVENTION

Scheduled to be held between September 1 and September 4 at Minneapolis, Saint Paul.

CONVENTIONALLY SPEAKING

A short history of the Democratic National Convention

DOWN THE YEARS

The Democratic National Convention is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years by the US Democratic Party. The first six Democratic Conventions were held in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1832 to 1852. The seventh Convention, in 1856, was held in Cincinnati. The last six Conventions, organized every four years between 1984 and 2004, were held in San Francisco, Atlanta, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston respectively.

MILESTONES

1844: Convention recommended establishment of a national party organization. Four years later, Democratic National Committee (DNC) came into being; it is now the longest-running political organization in the world.

1920: The Convention, held in San Francisco, supported the right to vote for women. In the Republican Convention the same year, the suffrage plank was rejected. Laura Clay became the first woman to receive a delegate vote for the nomination, though ultimately Governor James Cox became the nominee.

1932: While accepting the Democratic nomination in Chicago, Franklin D Roosevelt made his famous promise of “a new deal for the American people”. Happy Days Are Here Again was played for the first time; it went on to become an iconic Democratic theme song.

1972: In Miaimi Beach, Florida, Shirley Chisholm became the first African American to make a bid for the Presidency with a major political party. The nomination though, was won by George McGovern.

1984: The concept of ‘superdelegates’ was introduced in the nomination process. The superdelegates boosted Walter Mondale because of his strength among party officials. For the first time, a woman (Geraldine Ferraro) was nominated to be Vice-President, and Martha Layne Collins became the first woman to chair the Democratic Convention.

DENVER CONNECTION

This year, the Convention returns to Denver, Colorado, after a gap of exactly 100 years. The 1908 Convention here marked the first Convention by a major party in a western state. The first Denver Convention nominated ‘The Great Commoner’ Williams Jennings Bryan. His populist approach matched the town, and the transformation to the city of Denver began.

(TEXT & PIX: Democratic party web site)