Obama's Family Night Out

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Michelle Obama Speaks Passionately at DNC

Michelle Obama closed the first day of the Democratic National Convention with an impassioned speech about her life, values, and support for her husband.

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Indeed, the anti-Republican red meat was left for an unlikely source, soft-spoken former GOP congressman Jim Leach of Iowa, who hailed Obama as "a transcendent candidate" as he criticized his own party.

"The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years toward regulating values," Leach said. "The party of military responsibility has taken us to war with a country that did not attack us. The party that formerly led the world in arms control has moved to undercut treaties crucial to the defense of the Earth. The party that prides itself on conservation has abdicated its responsibilities in the face of global warming. And the party historically anchored in fiscal restraint has nearly doubled the national debt, squandering our precious resources in an undisciplined and unprecedented effort to finance a war with tax cuts."

Campaigning in Iowa, Obama tried to ease his party's divisions, conceding that "there are going to be some of Senator Clinton's supporters who we're going to have to work hard to persuade to come on board -- that's not surprising." But, he added: "If you take a look this week, I am absolutely convinced that both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton understand the stakes."

But the nerves were not easily calmed ahead of Hillary Clinton's speech on Tuesday and Bill Clinton's appearance on Wednesday. Hillary Clinton addressed the New York delegation at a breakfast in the morning. But while supporters waved signs declaring "Hillary Made History," the senator's focus was on the future.

"We were not all on the same side as Democrats, but we are now," she said. "We are united and we are together and we are determined."

Clinton is expected to release her delegates to Obama on Tuesday. That symbolic gesture reduces the prospects for major disruptions when the roll is called to nominate the senator from Illinois -- a historic moment when Obama will become the first black politician to head a major party's national ticket.

Divisions clearly remain, however, and the campaign of Republican Sen. John McCain did its best to foment unrest. It released a new advertisement featuring Wisconsin delegate Debra Bartoshevich declaring herself "a proud Hillary Clinton Democrat" who for the first time is supporting a Republican, McCain.

"A lot of Democrats will vote McCain," she says in the spot. "It's okay, really."

Clinton repudiated the ad in her appearance before the New York delegation, saying: "I'm Hillary Clinton, and I do not approve that message." But Howard Wolfson, who was her communications director, went public with the grievances her husband is still nursing. Writing in the New Republic, Wolfson said the former president "feels like the Obama campaign ran against and systematically dismissed his administration's accomplishments. And he feels like he was painted as a racist during the primary process."

Wolfson made it clear that he thinks it is Obama who needs to make amends.

"Senator Obama would go a long way towards healing these wounds if he were to specifically praise the accomplishments of the Clinton presidency in a line or two during his speech on Thursday," he concluded. "That should be painless."

Staff writers Shailagh Murray in Denver and Anne E. Kornblut, traveling with Obama, contributed to this report.