DENVER -- Democrats yesterday opened a week of speeches and celebrations in which they hoped to give voters a red-white-and-blue introduction to the first African-American nominee of a major party in the nation's history.

While offering an only-in-America portrayal of their own candidate, convention architects planned a contrary portrayal of his opponent, Sen. John S. McCain, as an out-of-touch plutocrat wedded to the policies of an unpopular administration.

The evening's headliner was would-be first lady Michelle Obama, but its emotional high point was the appearance of the ailing Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal icon whose early endorsement gave a crucial boost to the insurgent Obama campaign.

His niece, Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, introduced a taped tribute to her "Uncle Teddy," who was diagnosed with malignant brain cancer this spring. While focusing on the veteran senator, the piece, and Mr. Kennedy's speech, suggested Mr. Obama as the political heir of his family's political tradition.

"I have never had someone inspire me the way people tell me my father inspired them, but I do now -- Barack Obama," Caroline Kennedy said.

The footage, which included the senator at the helm of a sailboat filled with members of his extended family, was followed by the senator's surprise appearance on stage and a huge outpouring of appreciation from the delegates crammed into the Pepsi Center.

"I have come here tonight to change America," Mr. Kennedy said, his voice strong, but his gait unsteady, "and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States."

Mr. Kennedy spoke in a strong voice in a speech repeatedly interrupted by chants of "Teddy, Teddy."

"For me this is a season of hope," he said. Later echoing the rhetoric of his brother John's inaugural address in 1961, and his own eloquent valedictory to his failed presidential bid in 1980, he said, "The torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans. ... The work begins anew; the hope rises again, and the dream lives on."

The senator waved to a sea of dancing Kennedy signs in the crowd and worked his way smiling around the convention podium.

The endorsements from Mr. Kennedy and the daughter of the slain president came just before Mr. Obama managed to battle Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to a draw on February's Super Tuesday, a multi-state primary and caucus competition that many had expected to cement Mrs. Clinton's hold on the nomination.

The warm moments last night were a contrast to the persistent reports and speculation over lingering ill will between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, the candidate he so narrowly defeated in the longest primary battle in the party's history. Both camps put on a show of unity with Mrs. Clinton insisting that her support for Mr. Obama was unqualified. But the slow-to-be resolved discussions on how the roll call vote would proceed tomorrow did little to dispel the speculation.

Republicans seized on the opening in a new commercial in which a former Clinton supporter said she planned to vote for Mr. McCain.

In an appearance before her home state delegation, Mrs. Clinton dismissed the report, joking, "I'm Hillary Clinton, and I do not approve that message,"

"There was a lot in that story that was wrong," David Plouffe, the Obama campaign manager said of one report of lingering friction between the senior figures.

While promoting their own candidate, the Obama partisans were relentless in targeting Mr. McCain.

In an early evening speech, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led he delegates in a call-and-response mockery of the Republican.

"And John McCain was wrong," the crowd thundered again and again to a litany of policy contrasts between the two candidates.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Obama's campaign manager pointed once again to Mr. McCain's offhand definition of $5 million as the threshold point for moving out of the middle class, and his amnesia over the number of houses he owns.

"Last week is going to be a seminal week in the campaign. ... There's a real sense that he is out of touch," he said. "We are going to drive a truck through that this week and the rest of the election."

The star of the four-day gathering remained off stage, campaigning in Iowa as the convention was called to order at 3 p.m. local time, and watching his wife's address in Kansas City later last night. For all the publicity he has attracted during he in the 19 months of his precedent-shattering presidential run, Mr. Obama's advisers maintain that voters still don't know him in depth, They planned to fill in those blanks this week.

On Thursday, in another echo of the Kennedy tradition, Mr. Obama will accept his nomination in a speech before more than 70,000 partisan in nearby INVESCO Field. In 1960, President Kennedy accepted the Democratic standard in a similarly non-traditional speech in the Los Angeles Coliseum.