CONVENTION DRAMA

Note the last two paragraphs re Republicans defining Obama! The following items are from THE NOTE

Obama has already given the Clintons plenty -- and this is his convention, after all. "Two nights out of four featuring the Clintons is not what Obama had in mind for his convention, but he'll have to live with it," Newsweek's Jonathan Alter writes, noting that neither Obama nor the Clintons can stop delegates from voting for whomever they wish.

"The dustup over the Clintons will get resolved, but it's a harbinger of drama to come. Bill Clinton is still sore," Alter continues. "And Barack Obama hasn't quite figured out yet that the men who have been president is a tiny club, and Clinton is the only one whose advice is likely to prove useful."

"What else does she want? As Al Gore learned in 2000, having one Clinton, let alone two, hover over you as you campaign for the presidency can be trying," Katharine Q. Seelye writes in The New York Times. "Either way, she does have leverage. Polling shows that Mrs. Clinton remains as popular among Democrats these days as Mr. Obama, despite his having campaigned for two months as the party nominee."

"The Obama team's patience is being tested again, Obama advisers say," Kenneth T. Walsh writes for US News & World Report.

(And restart more old Clinton drama soon: "Former advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are in a tizzy over an upcoming piece in the Atlantic Monthly that chronicles the inner workings of the now-defunct campaign," Anne Kornblut writes in The Washington Post. "Of particular concern are nearly 200 internal memos that the author, Josh Green, obtained -- 130 or so of which he plans to scan in and post online. When the piece is published sometime next week, readers will be able to scroll through the memos, from senior strategists such as Mark Penn, Harold Ickes and Geoff Garin, and see what exactly was going on inside the infamously fractured Clinton organization.")

The back and forth with Clinton -- as well as questions about whether her husband will actively campaign for Obama after the convention -- threatens to distract attention from what Obama's backers hope will be one of the convention's central themes: change," Kornblut writes. "Planners are hoping to create an event that looks and feels different from past conventions, with more interactive components and an emphasis on the grass roots, in order to mirror the core message of Obama's candidacy."

(How much of this is about logistics, and how much is about respect? In which area can Obama afford to be more magnanimous?)

Clinton backers got some platform language: "Demeaning portrayals of women cheapen our debates, dampen the dreams of our daughters, and deny us the contributions of too many." And: "Our party is proud that we have put 18 million cracks in the highest glass ceiling."

(Proud that 18 million people voted for someone who isn't going to be the nominee?)

And former President Bill Clinton is locked in for a Wednesday convention speech, putting him in the center of the showcase on the vice presidential nominee's night -- and in the limelight the day after his wife takes the stage in Denver, ABC's Sarah Amos reports.

Yet Clinton could still not answer a simple question in her Web chat with supporters Thursday: Will she allow her name to be placed into nomination? (Obamaland wants a nomination by acclimation, not by roll call -- something that hasn't happened since LBJ claimed the nomination in a party still reeling from JFK's death, in 1964.)

"Sen. Barack Obama's campaign appears reluctant to have any sort of roll call vote at the Democratic convention this month," ABC's Jake Tapper reports. "Why? They have no interest in highlighting the narrowness of his victory."

Gary Hart offers some advice: A vote isn't necessarily bad. "My people put on a massive demonstration [on the convention floor in 1984]. It went on for 10 or 15 minutes," Hart tells Allison Sherry and Anne C. Mulkern of The Denver Post. "They felt very good about it afterward."

Obama may actually believe that the negotiations are "seamless," by why then do we see the cracks?

This is a pretty big split in perceiving the convention's purpose: "I don't think we're looking for catharsis. I think what we're looking for is energy and excitement about the prospects of changing this country."

"Even as Hillary Clinton heads to Las Vegas today in her first solo trip to campaign for Obama, she is holding out the prospect of a drawn-out nominating vote that experts say at best would be a distraction and at worst a disaster," Newsday's Tom Brune and Janie Lorber write.
His biggest agenda item: Curing "Obama fatigue," he told reporters Thursday, per ABC's Sunlen Miller.

He's already comic fodder, and the GOP is getting going (look for the RNC's Hawaii travel guide, complete with tips on where on the islands you can get your tires inflated).

"Although Democrats view the dog days of summer as downtime -- Mr. Obama will take next week off to vacation in Hawaii with friends -- the Republican Party is busy defining its opponent and setting out the terms of the debate that will begin in earnest after Labor Day," Stephen Dinan writes in the Washington Times.