Hilary Clinton lights up Denever as Michelle Obama Charms

Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama:

It’s Hillary Clinton’s turn on Tuesday to wow the crowd as she prepares to make the case for party unity amid lingering tensions and calls for supporters to back Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Clinton’s supporters and delegates are still sour over the tight and bruising Democratic primary battle. But on Monday, her and Obama supporters worked together to sign on the requisite 300 signatures needed to put her name into the nomination. The intent — to include her as part of history while still acknowledging her loss.

Negotiations were still under way on Tuesday, however, on the process by which the New York senator can offer a concession that would allow her to be part of the nomination but cut the roll call short and call on her delegates to back Obama unanimously.

Clinton addresses the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night, along with keynote speaker, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.

Her primary campaign has been a constant presence so far at the convention, with several speakers praising her for her efforts.

Howard Wolfson, former Clinton communications director and now a FOX News contributor, said Clinton’s speech has been written with Obama in mind, and his staff should be pleased with it.

“We do know that a lot of her supporters are looking to her, are going to tune in tonight, do want to know what she says about Barack Obama, and she is going to give a full-throated enthusiastic endorsement, urge her delegates, her supporters, her voters, 18 million of them, to get behind him to work for him to get him elected president. She is going to say if you believe what I believe if you fought for what I fought for it is now time to back Barack Obama,” Wolfson said.

But even as Clinton tries to put to rest claims of disunity within the Democratic Party, Republican John McCain aired a new television ad — which started running at 3 a.m. MT Tuesday — that plays off Clinton’s primary campaign spot featuring sleeping children and a phone call portending a crisis.

In the new ad, Clinton is quoted from the primary season saying: “I know Sen. McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And, Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.”

A narrator adds: “Hillary’s right. John McCain for president.”

Clinton has already denounced such tactics from McCain, telling supporters after similar efforts to use her words against Obama, “I’m Hillary Clinton and I do not approve that message.”

It’s a turnabout for Clinton, who once seemed to have the nomination in her grasp and now is being called on to defend and support the person who wrested it from her. She is effectively playing middlewoman Tuesday night — passing a torch from her husband, the 42nd president, to Obama, who wants to succeed him as the next Democratic president.

Ceding the 2008 contest to Obama does not necessarily mark the end of Clinton’s presidential ambitions.

At 60, she could easily chase her dream in a future White House contest, activating the fierce loyalists and the women who dreamed of a female president — and perhaps calling in an IOU from a future President Obama.

Clinton was out on Monday night meeting with her supporters at an event sponsored by Count Me In, which encourages women’s businesses. Clinton never mentioned Obama by name but did praise Michelle Obama’s speech to the convention on Monday night.

“Didn’t Michelle Obama do a wonderful job tonight as well? So there’s a lot to be proud of and a lot to be grateful for. But when all the speeches are over, and when we leave Denver, there’s still a lot of work to be done,” she said, adding that the country has a chance “to elect a president and a vice president who will help us make the dreams of so many Americans come true again.”

For her part, Michelle Obama drew enthusiastic cheers Monday night by praising Clinton for putting “those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” — a reference to Clinton’s vote total in the primaries.

Obama also showed her softer side at the convention, declaring “I love this country” and presenting a picture-perfect image of her family on the stage in Denver.

The remarks answered Republicans who ran critical Web videos in the spring that portrayed her as unpatriotic for saying during the primaries that her husband’s campaign made her proud of her country “for the first time.”

She said later she was talking about pride in the political process, but voters nevertheless have been slow to warm to her.

But all eyes turn to Clinton on Tuesday, in the first of two prime-time convention evenings dominated by her and her husband. On Wednesday night, former President Bill Clinton is taking the stag