Barack Obama
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. reacts while speaking at a rally at American Airlines Overhaul Base hanger at Kansas City International Airport in Kansas City, Mo., Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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Democrats used the second night of their four-day convention to punch back more aggressively at John McCain, even as some party insiders warned that hitting too forcefully might jeopardize Barack Obama's upbeat, all-inclusive image.

With party leaders trying to strike the right balance between positive and negative messages, elected officials paraded to the convention podium Tuesday to portray Obama as an agent of change, and McCain as a continuation of President Bush's policies.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, for instance, mentioned McCain six times in a brief speech. "As much as John McCain would like us to believe he's different, his economic plan offers not a single new idea, just more of the same," Leahy said.

His mid-afternoon remarks probably got scant notice from TV viewers. But Democrats expected a more forceful, and much more heavily watched, prime-time address by Hillary Rodham Clinton later in the evening. Some of her die-hard supporters continued to complain that Obama had not shown her enough respect, and Obama loyalists were counting on her to deliver a full-throated endorsement and a sharp critique of McCain.

Some top associates of her husband, former president Bill Clinton, publicly complained that the convention's first day went too soft on McCain.

"If this party has a message, it's done a hell of a job hiding it," James Carville told CNN Monday night. Paul Begala, another former top Clinton aide, criticized Tuesday night's scheduled keynote speaker for signaling his plans to go easy on McCain while playing up bipartisanship.

"This isn't the Richmond Chamber of Commerce," Begala said of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's planned speech.

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, pushed back. He said news outlets in general, and cable TV shows in particular, failed to acknowledge that Monday was devoted mainly to highlighting Obama's wife, Michelle, who hardly could be expected trash the GOP opponent.

"We don't need to attack McCain" at such moments, Dean told a gathering of Ohio delegates. "There will be plenty of time for that."

"We're going to run this convention," he said. "The Republicans are not going to run this convention, and CNN is not going to run this convention." The convention must be used, he said, "to make sure people know who Barack Obama is, who Joe Biden is." Biden, a senator from Delaware, is Obama's running mate.

"We set out last night to make sure that America knew that Michelle Obama was going to be the kind of first lady that they could all be proud of, and that was a lot like them," Dean said in an interview. "All this stuff about McCain, and this hitting back hard enough, that's all political blah-blah."

Obama faces a dilemma familiar to previous nominees. McCain is taunting him with hard-hitting TV ads, and many Democrats want their candidate to strike back. But Obama also is trying to present a positive, relatively bipartisan image to Americans just tuning in to the presidential campaign.

Some allies are urging caution.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen told the Associated Press: "My inclination is you have to be careful about attacking McCain," because his life story which includes more than five years as a Vietnam prisoner of war makes him a sympathetic figure to many Americans.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who stumped for John Kerry after his own presidential try failed four years ago, had a similar view.

"I was the red meat guy in '04," he told the AP. "I think that Senator Obama has tried to run a campaign of not attacking and of not polarizing the country, and it has worked for him so far. Going down the road, I don't know whether he needs to do more attacking and red meat or not, but I will say that he has an expert in eating red meat in Joe Biden, so I'm not worried about it."

Indeed, party leaders made it clear that McCain will be linked to Bush, whose approval ratings are dismal, countless times between now and Thursday.

"Even John McCain concedes that 'We are worse off than we were four years ago,'" House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said in prepared remarks for Tuesday. "But you can't expect change from a senator who voted in lockstep with President Bush 95 percent of the time."

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