Charlotte (North Carolina):
Democrats launched a convention blitz on Mitt Romney on Tuesday, using vintage footage of the late Ted Kennedy in an attempt to ridicule the Republican presidential hopeful.
First Lady Michelle Obama was the headline speaker, due to address the gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina today and remind American voters what they liked about her husband in the first place.
But it was Kennedy, speaking from beyond the grave, who whipped up the crowd as a video showed him annihilating Romney during a one-on-one debate from the 1994 Massachusetts Senate race that the Democrat won handsomely.
"My opponent is multiple-choice," Kennedy famously jibed, as he took down Romney with a master-stroke after the then Senate hopeful had shifted his position on abortion.
Party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz brought down the gavel to kick off three days of speeches by party grandees and rising stars that will culminate with President Barack Obama's acceptance address on Thursday.
A group of young children performed the pledge of allegiance before Amber Riley from hit musical TV show "Glee" belted out a stirring rendition of the national anthem that reduced at least one of the party faithful to tears.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker electrified the room with a loud endorsement of the party's official platform for 2012, accusing Republicans of promoting "savage disparities that favour the fortunate few."
Former president Jimmy Carter expressed his admiration for Obama in a video message, saying the evidence was "overwhelming" that he was the leader America needed in the face of complex domestic and international challenges.
"It is up to all of us to make sure that the American people understand exactly what is at stake and at risk in this election," he said.
It is nine weeks exactly before Americans decide if the country's first black president should be re-elected or if his Republican rival, multi-millionaire businessman Romney, should oust him after just one term.
National polls put the rivals neck-and-neck, but a closer inspection of swing states reveals that Romney has his work cut out, especially as the bounce he was hoping for from last week's Republican convention has failed to materialize.
At the Republican gathering in Tampa, Florida, Ann Romney was the linchpin of a coordinated attempt to humanize Mitt, portraying him as a soft family man and deconstructing the Democratic stereotype of him as a ruthless corporate raider.
When she takes centre-stage in the packed Time Warner Cable Arena, it will be Michelle Obama's turn to take the harder edges off her husband, a man sometimes seen as professorial, even aloof.
"My job tonight is just going to be to remind people of who my husband is," she told a group of women journalists hours before her speech.
"Even though he's a very likable president, he has been the president, and he's had a very serious role and there are few times when he can really let his hair down," she said.
At a campaign event in the key battleground state of Virginia, the president referred to his wife as the "star of the Obama family" and warned their daughters Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, that he might get teary-eyed tonight.
"I'm going to be at home and I'm going to be watching it with our girls, and I am going to try not to let them see their daddy cry. Because when Michelle starts talking, I start getting all misty."
With an economic malaise gripping much of the country, Democrats are fighting hard to counter the Republican narrative that while Obama's 2008 election was historic and rightly celebrated his presidency has been a bust.
Obama was asked to grade his performance on the economy during an interview with a Colorado news program broadcast on Monday and unwittingly provided an opening for his opponents. "You know, I would say 'incomplete,'" he said.
Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan jumped, exclaiming with incredulity on CBS News: "Four years into a presidency and it's incomplete?"
The Obama remark followed another stumble by his team at the weekend, when top officials laboured over the answer to a seemingly straightforward question: "Are Americans better off now than they were four years ago?"
Following trips to battlegrounds Iowa and Colorado and a tour of storm-hit New Orleans, Obama campaigned Tuesday in Virginia, another state that could prove vital to his hopes come November.
The president flies to Charlotte on Wednesday on the eve of a nomination acceptance speech during which he will use to try to persuade the American people to give him a second term despite the tough economic backdrop.
The graying 51-year-old president will seek to rekindle some 2008 magic on Thursday as he leaves the confines of the convention hall for a 70,000-seater outdoor football stadium.
First Lady Michelle Obama was the headline speaker, due to address the gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina today and remind American voters what they liked about her husband in the first place.
But it was Kennedy, speaking from beyond the grave, who whipped up the crowd as a video showed him annihilating Romney during a one-on-one debate from the 1994 Massachusetts Senate race that the Democrat won handsomely.
"My opponent is multiple-choice," Kennedy famously jibed, as he took down Romney with a master-stroke after the then Senate hopeful had shifted his position on abortion.
Party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz brought down the gavel to kick off three days of speeches by party grandees and rising stars that will culminate with President Barack Obama's acceptance address on Thursday.
A group of young children performed the pledge of allegiance before Amber Riley from hit musical TV show "Glee" belted out a stirring rendition of the national anthem that reduced at least one of the party faithful to tears.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker electrified the room with a loud endorsement of the party's official platform for 2012, accusing Republicans of promoting "savage disparities that favour the fortunate few."
Former president Jimmy Carter expressed his admiration for Obama in a video message, saying the evidence was "overwhelming" that he was the leader America needed in the face of complex domestic and international challenges.
"It is up to all of us to make sure that the American people understand exactly what is at stake and at risk in this election," he said.
It is nine weeks exactly before Americans decide if the country's first black president should be re-elected or if his Republican rival, multi-millionaire businessman Romney, should oust him after just one term.
National polls put the rivals neck-and-neck, but a closer inspection of swing states reveals that Romney has his work cut out, especially as the bounce he was hoping for from last week's Republican convention has failed to materialize.
At the Republican gathering in Tampa, Florida, Ann Romney was the linchpin of a coordinated attempt to humanize Mitt, portraying him as a soft family man and deconstructing the Democratic stereotype of him as a ruthless corporate raider.
When she takes centre-stage in the packed Time Warner Cable Arena, it will be Michelle Obama's turn to take the harder edges off her husband, a man sometimes seen as professorial, even aloof.
"My job tonight is just going to be to remind people of who my husband is," she told a group of women journalists hours before her speech.
"Even though he's a very likable president, he has been the president, and he's had a very serious role and there are few times when he can really let his hair down," she said.
At a campaign event in the key battleground state of Virginia, the president referred to his wife as the "star of the Obama family" and warned their daughters Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, that he might get teary-eyed tonight.
"I'm going to be at home and I'm going to be watching it with our girls, and I am going to try not to let them see their daddy cry. Because when Michelle starts talking, I start getting all misty."
With an economic malaise gripping much of the country, Democrats are fighting hard to counter the Republican narrative that while Obama's 2008 election was historic and rightly celebrated his presidency has been a bust.
Obama was asked to grade his performance on the economy during an interview with a Colorado news program broadcast on Monday and unwittingly provided an opening for his opponents. "You know, I would say 'incomplete,'" he said.
Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan jumped, exclaiming with incredulity on CBS News: "Four years into a presidency and it's incomplete?"
The Obama remark followed another stumble by his team at the weekend, when top officials laboured over the answer to a seemingly straightforward question: "Are Americans better off now than they were four years ago?"
Following trips to battlegrounds Iowa and Colorado and a tour of storm-hit New Orleans, Obama campaigned Tuesday in Virginia, another state that could prove vital to his hopes come November.
The president flies to Charlotte on Wednesday on the eve of a nomination acceptance speech during which he will use to try to persuade the American people to give him a second term despite the tough economic backdrop.
The graying 51-year-old president will seek to rekindle some 2008 magic on Thursday as he leaves the confines of the convention hall for a 70,000-seater outdoor football stadium.
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