While Hillary Rodham Clinton urges her supporters to heal a fractured Democratic Party by lining up behind Barack Obama, his Republican opponent is asking voters to remember Clinton's own criticism that Obama isn't ready to take that 3 a.m. phone call.

The day Clinton was to address the Democratic National Convention in a prime-time speech, John McCain's latest TV ad played off her primary campaign spot featuring sleeping children and a phone call portending a crisis. In the new ad Clinton is shown 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."

Not vetting Clinton for veep opened Pandora's Box

Clinton left it to the Obama camp to spin the angle that she was not vetted because she did not want to produce documents without a guarantee of serious consideration. If that's true, you can well imagine that, without such assurances, she was not going to produce just about the only thing left that the world doesn't know about the Clintons -- the  potentially controversial lists of donors to her husband's presidential library.

Whatever the cause, the appearance of Clinton getting dissed by Obama opened Pandora's Box for her enthusiasts.

Obama, Clinton camps working on hotel roll-call vote

Supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton are furiously circulating petitions on the floor of the Democratic National Convention tonight, hoping to stave off a plan to hold the convention's roll call at breakfast Wednesday — out of the public eye — sources inside the delegations say...

Have the Democrats wasted the first night of the convention?

Yes, says Democratic Strategist and CNN contributor James Carville.

Speaking on CNN, Carville said the party was too soft in its attacks on John McCain Monday night — the same mistake, Carville says, Democrats made at the 2004 convention.

"The way they planned it tonight was supposed to be sort of the personal — Michelle Obama will talk about Barack Obama personally, Ted Kennedy was a very personal, emotional speech," Carville said. "But I guarantee on the first night of the Republican Convention, you're going to hear talk about Barack Obama, commander-in-chief, tax cuts, et cetera, et cetera."

"You haven't heard about Iraq or John McCain or George W. Bush — I haven't heard any of this. We are a country that is in a borderline recession, we are an 80 percent wrong-track country. Health care, energy — I haven't heard anything about gas prices," Carville also says. "Maybe we are going to look better Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. But right now, we're playing hide the message."

Ailing and aging, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy summoned fellow Democrats to rally behind Barack Obama's pioneering quest for the White House Monday night in an emotional opening to a party convention struggling for unity essential in the fall campaign.

... "The work begins anew, the hope rises again and the dream lives on," Kennedy said in a strong voice, reprising the final line of a speech at the 1980 convention that brought a different convention to its feet. The senator has been undergoing treatment for a malignant brain tumor.

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Three Democratic clans mix uneasily

“Someday the Clintons and Mr. Obama
may become good friends.
For now, this is a hard, human process —
making room on the stage for everyone.”

                                        -James Carville