News

Hillary Clinton supporters cried foul during the seemingly never-ending primaries this spring when several talking heads compared the candidate to the obsessed, unkillable character played by Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

Her campaign may now be long dead, but Ms. Clinton continues to haunt the Democratic Party and its presumptive presidential candidate, Barack Obama, and many wonder whether she will use the approaching convention in Denver to boost or to undermine her former opponent.

Both Ms. Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have been given headline speaking roles at the Democratic National Convention in two weeks.

Ms. Clinton will speak on Aug. 26, the 88th anniversary of the women's right to vote, and Mr. Clinton is expected to speak the following night, the same evening as the as-yet-unnamed vice-presidential nominee.

The announcement of the couple's high-profile convention roles came from the Obama camp over the weekend, before an article in the September issue of The Atlantic, released Tuesday, offered new revelations about Clinton campaign strategies against Mr. Obama during the primaries.

The piece, called “The Front-Runner's Fall” by senior editor Joshua Green, contains various leaked campaign e-mails from Clinton strategist Mark Penn suggesting that Mr. Obama be painted as un-American.

“I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values,” Mr. Penn wrote in one message.

“Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America to the middle class in the middle of the last century. And talk about the basic bargain as about the deeply American values you grew up with, learned as a child and that drive you today,” he said in another.

The tactic was not adopted by Ms. Clinton, but the article is likely to stir up some of the intense animosity that exists between the two campaigns and their supporters.

Some observers also worry that the New York senator may use her convention role to advance her own agenda, rather than to articulate her support for Mr. Obama.

“The presidential candidate would obviously like her to say, ‘This is just the greatest person in the world and I've seen the error of my ways and you should vote for him,' ” said Gerald Pomper, a professor emeritus of political science at Rutgers University. “But the other candidate may have other motives and sour feelings.”

Mr. Pomper, the author of seven books about presidential elections including one about party conventions called Nominating the President, said that political party A-listers are historically given prominent roles at conventions, but can often serve as an undermining presence.

In 1964, Bobby Kennedy appeared at the Democratic convention in support of nominee Lyndon Johnson, and then proceeded to blow him out of the water with a tribute to his late brother, John. F. Kennedy.

In 1980, Ted Kennedy withdrew his name from nomination but then delivered a speech that made only one fleeting reference to the victorious candidate, Jimmy Carter.

Mr. Pomper believes that Ms. Clinton has little to gain from being ungracious, and that her husband is more likely to use the convention pulpit to settle old scores.

“With Bill, we don't ever know what he's going to do. And he feels more attacked and unfairly treated than she does,” he said.

Mr. Clinton is expected to address the convention on a day dedicated to national security, which has been given the theme “Securing America's Future.”

Some expect the former president to instead protest against the characterization of his controversial role in his wife's campaign, and try to salvage her political future.

“The worst thing he could say is that you're nominating the wrong person and that we'll be back in four years,” Mr. Pomper said.

But not everyone wants to wait four years.

Whether Ms. Clinton will be a disruptive a presence at the convention also depends on whether she submits her name for a role-call vote on the nomination, a process that would allow her supporters to vote for her before, presumably, rallying around Mr. Obama.

Some Clinton backers have formed an organization called the Denver Group, which is pushing for such a vote. The group took out an ad in the Chicago Tribune yesterday threatening a “genuine revolt of more than 18 million voters” if Ms. Clinton's name is not placed in nomination at the convention.