A look at Tuesday’s speakers for the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver:
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SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Democratic leaders hope the long-awaited prime-time speech by Barack Obama’s chief rival during the bruising primary campaign will solidify party support for the nominee. But even as they hand Clinton a plum speaking spot, party leaders will be keeping one eye outside the convention hall. Some Clinton supporters have said they’ll paper Denver with fliers supporting the New York senator, though Clinton has made several appearances urging Democrats to back Obama.
FORMER GOV. MARK WARNER: Virginia’s former governor and current Senate candidate is considered a rising Democratic star because of his success in a former GOP stronghold. Mentioned as a possible vice president pick early on, Warner occupies the same keynote speaker slot that Obama enjoyed four years ago as a rising Democratic star.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: The Vermont senator and prominent Obama backer called on Clinton to leave the race in March. Leahy said she should throw in the towel in “the interests of a Democratic victory in November.”
SEN. BOB CASEY JR.: The Pennsylvania senator got Obama’s attention when he endorsed him just days before Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary in March, a contest won handily by Clinton. As with Leahy, Casey’s endorsement helped smooth Obama’s path to gaining widespread acceptance from party regulars.
GOV. KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Kansas’ governor is a favorite for Democrats after winning election as governor twice in solid GOP country. She backed Obama in January and has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential choice since then.
REP. STENY HOYER: The Maryland lawmaker was elected House majority leader last year even though Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. Since then, Hoyer and Pelosi have worked together on various issues, joining to stifle possible impeachment proceedings against President Bush, which were viewed as politically dangerous for Democrats.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Klobuchar became a prominent female supporter of Obama shortly after he carried her home state of Minnesota by a wide margin in March. In 2006, she became the first woman elected to the Senate from Minnesota.
GOV. JOE MANCHIN: West Virginia’s chief executive leads the Democratic Governors Association and stayed uncommitted in the presidential race until Clinton, who won his state’s May primary, told Manchin she would back Obama’s bid.
GOV. CHET CULVER: Iowa’s governor remained neutral throughout the campaign for Iowa’s leadoff precinct caucuses, but he endorsed Obama soon after the Illinois senator’s win there. At the time, Culver called Obama the party’s best candidate to draw independents and Republicans because Obama would fight for “ordinary folks.”
REP. RAHM EMANUEL: The Illinois Democrat chairs the Democratic caucus in the House and helped steer the party’s successful 2006 effort to win control of Congress. Emanuel is one of the Democrats’ top strategists, but he and other House leaders failed this year to secure enough votes to make price-gouging at the gas pump a federal crime.
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Van Hollen heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Party leaders see the Maryland lawmaker as a skilled fundraiser who helped the party win the House seat of former Speaker Dennis Hastert in an Illinois special election in March.
REP. NYDIA VELAZQUEZ: A New Yorker, Velazquez became the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress in 1992. She supported fellow New Yorker Clinton in the Democratic primaries and has said Obama should choose Clinton as his running mate to help win the support of Hispanic voters.
REP. LINDA SANCHEZ: The Californian is half of the chamber’s first sister duo. Her sister, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, is also from California. A former labor organizer, Sanchez leads a House Judiciary subcommittee that recently ruled that former presidential aide Karl Rove broke the law by defying a congressional subpoena.
REP. TAMMY BALDWIN: The Wisconsin Democrat is the only openly lesbian member of Congress and was first elected to the House in 1998.
DELEGATE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON: Norton is the District of Columbia’s longtime nonvoting delegate to the House. Norton speaks out sharply in favor of voting rights for D.C. residents, who have no voting representative in Congress.
REP. MIKE HONDA: The Californian leads the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and spent his early childhood with his family in an internment camp in Colorado during World War II. Elected to Congress in 2000, Honda is now a Democratic whip in the chamber.
REP. XAVIER BECERRA: Becerra, a strong Obama supporter from Los Angeles, serves on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee and is also known as a strong supporter of gun control.
GOV. JIM DOYLE: Wisconsin’s governor said in March that there was no way Clinton could win the nomination without a superdelegate maneuver that would “rip the party apart.”
GOV. BRIAN SCHWEITZER: Montana’s governor keeps a rifle in his office, often wears boots and is seen as the kind of Democrat who can appeal to white men. A 2004 victor in staunch Republican country, Schweitzer has said he plans to use his address to discuss energy, especially oil and gas development in the Mountain West.
GOV. DEVAL PATRICK: Massachusetts’ successor as governor to Republican Mitt Romney, Patrick campaigned in battleground states for Obama during the primaries. In February, Patrick brushed aside suggestions from the Clinton campaign that Obama plagiarized lines from his speeches, calling the accusation “trivial.”
GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO: The Democratic governor from John McCain’s home state of Arizona has been frequently mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick, though pollsters say it would be a stretch for Democrats to win Arizona with McCain leading the GOP ticket.
GOV. ED RENDELL: Pennsylvania’s governor and the former mayor of Philadelphia was a prominent Clinton backer but said in late spring that Clinton should not fight Obama’s nomination in Denver.
GOV. TED STRICKLAND: Like Rendell, Ohio’s governor backed Clinton. He helped deliver his state for her using an aggressive rural strategy that he used in his own race for governor.
GOV. DAVID PATERSON: Earlier this summer, New York’s first black governor condemned The New Yorker magazine’s satirical cover depicting Obama and his wife as flag-burning radicals. He backed Clinton but said in May she was wrong to compare her efforts to count Michigan and Florida votes to civil rights battles and said she should end her presidential effort.
MANNY DIAZ: The mayor of Miami heads the U.S. Conference of Mayors and is a frequent critic of the federal government’s slowness in tackling global warming. A lawyer born in Cuba, Diaz became known as the attorney for the Miami family of Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of a heated international custody battle in 2000.
FREDERICO PENA: Former secretary of energy and transportation under President Clinton, Pena joined Obama’s campaign last fall. The former Denver mayor worked to court Hispanic voters for Obama.
JOHN CHIANG: The California controller frequently clashes with California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Chiang has been especially critical of Schwarzenegger’s proposal to ease that state’s budget woes by rolling back the salaries of thousands of workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour.
JOHN SWEENEY: The president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor organization, tries to whip up support for Obama, who has said President Bush’s economic policies are to blame for the nation’s economic downturn and soaring deficit.
ANNA BURGER: The chairwoman of Change to Win, made up of seven unions, is also the secretary-treasurer of one of the nation’s largest unions, the Service Employees International Union. Change to Win, which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005, backed Obama in February.
CECILE RICHARDS: President of Planned Parenthood of America, Richards is a daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards. Ann Richards scored one of the most memorable lines of the Democrats’ 1988 convention in Atlanta when she joked that the first President Bush was “born with a silver foot in his mouth.”
LILLY LEDBETTER: One of the few non-politicians to speak at the convention, Ledbetter lost a pay-equity case before the Supreme Court. Ledbetter sued Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., saying she was paid less than her male counterparts. A jury sided with Ledbetter, but the Supreme Court said she waited too long to sue. Party leaders hope her appearance shores up Democratic support among women, though Democrats said Ledbetter will not endorse any candidate outright.
SEN. BARBARA BOXER: California’s junior senator is very popular in her home state, winning a third term in the Senate in 2004 with a high vote total. One of the Senate’s most liberal members, she remained neutral until Obama secured the nomination.
SEN. MARY LANDRIEU: The Louisiana second-term senator is considered among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for re-election this year. She has been accused by her Republican opponent, John Kennedy, of trying to distance herself from Obama. Landrieu says that’s not true.
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL: The Washington senator backed Clinton in her state’s primary contest in February, comparing her trailblazing role as a female presidential candidate to Sacajawea, the American Indian guide for the Lewis and Clark expedition in the early 1800s. Cantwell was first elected to the Senate in 2000.
SEN. BLANCHE LINCOLN: Arkansas’ senior senator is among the chamber’s most conservative Democrats. When she was elected to the Senate in 1998 at the age of 38, she was the youngest woman ever to be elected to the upper chamber.
SEN. DEBBIE STABENOW: Another strong Clinton supporter in the Senate, Michigan’s first female senator hugged Clinton when she returned to the Senate after ending her presidential bid. The Lansing native then predicted Obama will carry her home state and recently joined a bipartisan group of 11 senators calling for the Bush administration to fight harder against China on currency devaluation.
