Getting To Know John Kerry

John Kerry's outspoken wife Teresa Heinz Kerry and aging liberal warrior Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will offer the nation a more personal and family view of the party's candidate for president on the second night of the Democratic National Convention.

Tapped to deliver the keynote address is a rising star in the Democratic Party: Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama, who's heavily favored to become the Senate's only black member, and only the fifth black senator in history.

In an interview with CBS News Anchor Dan Rather, Heinz Kerry said she wanted Americans to know that her husband "is a man who believes in public service and he is also passionate about justice and fairness and he's an optimist."

She also refused to back down for telling a reporter to "shove it" earlier this week, displaying the same unapologetic bluntness that Vice President Dick Cheney showed when he uttered a vulgarity to a Democratic senator last month

"You know, I defended my rights," Heinz Kerry said. "I defended my freedom and personally I defended my integrity, and I think any American would do that. And I would certainly applaud them for doing that and find them very weak if they didn't."

Democrats are looking to their keynote speaker, Obama, to energize the base, as former President Clinton and his wife, Hillary, did Monday night.

A 42-year-old state senator and Harvard-educated law professor, Obama was
an early opponent of invading Iraq. But he said his convention speech will not dwell on President Bush's handling of the war or on specific policy differences with the GOP administration.

"I don't spend a lot of time focusing on Bush. I spend a lot of time focusing on where we fall short of our ideals," Obama said.

Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, surrounded himself with military veterans at a campaign stop Tuesday in the Navy town of Norfolk, Va., as he made his way north to Boston. He's scheduled to arrive at the convention Wednesday.

Keeping national security at the front of the presidential campaign, Kerry called for extending the life of the Sept. 11 commission past its scheduled end date of Aug. 26 to help ensure that its recommendations are enacted as soon as possible. "The stakes are too high," he said.

Kerry's running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, arrived in Boston on Tuesday with his wife Elizabeth after visiting the grave of their son Wade in their hometown of Raleigh, N.C. Edwards will accept the Democratic vice-presidential nomination tomorrow night.

On Monday night, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton revved up the packed convention hall by saying Kerry "will lead the world, not alienate it," before introducing her husband and former President Bill Clinton as "the last great Democratic president."

"During the Vietnam War, many young men, including the current president, the vice president and me, could have gone to Vietnam and didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background. He could have avoided going too, but instead, he said: Send me," Mr. Clinton said.

Republicans, in town to combat the Democrats' message, aimed to contrast what they called Mr. Clinton's more centrist policies with Kerry's liberal voting record in the Senate. "It's going to be difficult for Kerry to wrest control of these folks from the thrall of Bill Clinton," veteran GOP strategist Rich Galen said.

Former Vice President Al Gore urged Democrats to "fully and completely" channel their anger over the bitter Florida recount, which decided the 2000 election in President Bush's favor, and send Kerry to the White House.

"When policies are clearly not working, we can change them. If our leaders make mistakes, we can hold them accountable - even if they never admit their mistakes," said Gore.

Former President Jimmy Carter, elected to the White House in 1976, accused President Bush of squandering the international goodwill that flowed to the United States in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Pre-convention polls show Kerry tied or slightly ahead of President Bush, although the same surveys show the president with a clear advantage over his challenger in handling the war on terror.

The first national political convention since Sept. 11, 2001, was influenced by the terror attacks in ways both big and small. In a ceremony of remembrance, the hall went nearly dark but for small flashlights held aloft as the strains of "Amazing Grace" floated across the arena from the violin of a 16-year-old musician. Outside, armed officers stood guard along a seven-foot-tall metal security fence that ringed the convention complex.

The president, meanwhile, stayed out of the public eye at his Texas ranch.