Obama is cast as an everyman

As part of the two-track strategy, Obama's campaign launched a TV spot in battleground states jabbing McCain on the economy and tying him to President Bush. The ad rewrote lyrics from Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" -- "Don't know much about industry / Really can't explain the price of gas / Or what has happened to the middle class" -- and featured several pictures of McCain and Bush. One showed the two men embracing, with McCain's face buried in the president's shoulder.

The McCain camp put up a spot featuring a Clinton supporter, Wisconsin's Debra Bartoshevich, saying she had switched her allegiance to the GOP nominee-to-be. "A lot of Democrats will vote McCain," she says. "It's OK, really."

Clinton responded with a statement strongly endorsing Obama yet again. "I just want to make it absolutely clear, we cannot afford four more years of George W. Bush's failed policies in America, and that's what we would get with John McCain."

But after a long and bitter primary, the lingering resentments are not easily papered over with sunny press statements.

Publicly, the two camps worked to minimize any hint of hard feelings. "There is no stronger surrogate for Sen. Obama than Sen. Clinton," Valerie Jarrett, a friend and close advisor to Obama, told reporters. Jarrett did allow that "it may take a little time for some people to come around."

Privately, aides to the Clintons and Obama continued to take potshots and grumble about perceived slights and the seeming presumptuousness of the other side.

One irritant is the speech that Bill Clinton is to give Wednesday night, a session devoted to national security issues. A former advisor to the Clintons said Monday that the former president was not happy being told he should stick to that topic. Obama sought to quiet the rumblings as he campaigned in Iowa, telling reporters he told Clinton that he was free to say whatever he wished.

"Bill Clinton knows a little bit about trying to yank an economy out of the doldrums and helping middle-class families. And it wouldn't make much sense for me to want to edit his remarks to prevent him from making a strong case about why we need fundamental economic change in this country," Obama said.

Another sticking point was the choreography of Wednesday's roll call of states, which will formally install Obama as the Democratic nominee. It is a traditional piece of political theater usually given over to cornball testimonials to the folks back home. Clinton is expected to urge her delegates to back Obama, but told reporters some of them "feel an obligation to the people who sent them here" to cast their ballots for the New York senator.