Republicans determined to ruin Obama's Democratic convention party
25 Aug 2008, 1231 Hrs

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London, Aug 25 (ANI): The Republicans are determined to pour cold water on the celebrations and exploit resentment among Hillary Clinton supporters during the Democrat convention to anoint Senator Barack Obama as their presidential nominee.

Republicans also want to woo Clinton supporters, many of whom are livid that the former First Lady was not even on Obama's vice-presidential shortlist, The Telegraph reported.

In a new McCain advertisement, a female voice intones: "She won millions of votes, but isn't on his ticket. Why? For speaking the truth."

There are then sound-bites of Clinton saying that "you never hear the specifics" about his plans, "we still don't have a lot of answers about Senator Obama" on his links to the corrupt real estate dealer Tony Rezko and: "Senator Obama's campaign has become increasingly negative."

It concludes: "The truth hurt. And Obama didn't like it."

"There's going to be a lot of rhetoric coming out of the convention but we want to match that with Barack Obama's record and tell people he's not ready to be President," said Alex Conant, Republican National Committee spokesman.

Among their first targets is Joe Biden, the loquacious senator whose 36 years in the Senate and two presidential campaigns have given them a trove of unfortunate utterances to unveil - including a slew criticising Obama.

Rudolph Giuliani, who will be in Denver on Wednesday, said: "Senator Obama has made a choice more out of weakness than strength."

"The strong choice would have been Hillary Clinton, the obvious choice would have been Hillary Clinton. She had 50 percent of the Democratic vote. Obama has 50 per cent of the Democratic vote, you almost have to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid her as the vice-presidential pick of the party," he said.

Conant said: "There's a lot of Hillary supporters that are concerned that Obama doesn't have the experience necessary to be commander-in-chief and we are going to be very aggressive in reaching out to them."

On Monday, Republicans will put forward Carly Fiorini, the senior adviser in charge of persuading Clinton supporters. Romney will fly in on Tuesday followed by Giuliani on Wednesday and Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota - another vice-presidential prospect - on Thursday.

The McCain campaign has lost no time in turning Biden's words about Obama against the White House contender.

For the time being, Republicans want to portray Biden as a wise hand, thereby adding weight to his past criticisms of Obama. But there is also a collection of unfortunate statements by Biden. (ANI)