Party Unity Tops Agenda For Democrats

A marker at the Democratic convention site in Denver reflects an environmental focus. (By Preston Keres -- The Washington Post)
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"There are going to be some folks who make a point that they still have pretty strong feelings about the primary," Burton said. "This is a 16-month affair. It's normal."

Obama is seeking to shift his campaign events to a more intimate scale as he prepares to head into the outsize convention, where he will address a Super Bowl-size stadium crowd with a sky camera floating overhead. After a long night of speechwriting, he flew Sunday morning to Wisconsin, attended church and spoke to a small group of supporters at an outdoor picnic site. Standing in a clearing near a playground, with a barbecue buffet set up nearby, Obama presented himself not as the celebrity that McCain has portrayed in a barrage of recent television ads but as a typical dad worried about his young daughters. That's one reason he is running for president, he told the Wisconsin crowd.

He is also scheduled to visit Iowa and Montana as he winds his way toward Colorado. After the convention, Obama and Biden will travel together for the first time, taking a bus tour through battleground states in the Midwest that will coincide next weekend with the funeral of Democratic Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones in Ohio.

That tour is likely to coincide with the announcement of McCain's running mate, the stakes of which may be higher after the mostly positive reaction to the Biden selection. In an interview broadcast Sunday, McCain insisted that he had not yet made up his mind.

"I'd love to tell you that I've made the decision. But we're still in the process," he told Katie Couric of CBS News. Whoever McCain picks will now be faced with Biden, a pugnacious debater whose foreign policy expertise will be tough to match. That could spark concerns about two of those considered to be at the top of McCain's list, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, neither of whom has experience abroad.

Biden's appeal in heartland battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio could also prompt McCain to focus on someone who can compete in that all-important region. Former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, who served as the first secretary of homeland security, could fit the bill. McCain could also be forced to look beyond those who have been most prominently mentioned as possible ticket mates.

"I am looking for someone who shares my values, my principles and my priorities," he told Couric.

Staff writer Michael D. Shear, traveling with the McCain campaign, contributed to this report.