From left: author Travis Smiley, former Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder, Jesse Jackson Jr, author Cornel West and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn talk about Obama and the future of the race in America at Denver Athletic Club yesterday. - AP

DENVER (AP):

The Democrats opened their 2008 presidential nominating convention yesterday, a four-day political festival to nominate Barack Obama for president and fellow Senator Joe Biden as his running mate.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, was in Denver for the opening and is scheduled to speak to fellow Democrats still trying to recover from a long and bruising primary battle between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

McCain's assault

While it was Obama's convention, Clinton, the former first lady, drew heavy attention as she fought off Republican John McCain's assault on Democratic unity and urged diehard supporters to get behind her former rival.

Clinton came out fighting even as a new poll showed 30 per cent of her supporters across the country said they would vote for McCain, a third-party candidate or no one.

In remarks to the convention's New York delegation, Clinton declared too much was at stake for the party to remain divided. She cited the next president's hand in naming Supreme Court justices, the need to fix American education, the US energy crisis and foreign policy challenges.