Obama in Billings, Montana. (AFP)

Denver, Aug. 27: With her husband looking on tenderly and her supporters watching with tears in their eyes, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton deferred her own dreams last night and delivered an emphatic plea at the Democratic National Convention to unite behind her rival, Senator Barack Obama, no matter what ill will lingered.

Hillary Clinton, who was once certain that she would win the Democratic nomination this year, also took steps yesterday — deliberate steps, aides said — to keep the door open to a future bid for the presidency.

She rallied supporters in her speech, and, at an earlier event with 3,000 women, described her passion about her own campaign. And her aides limited input on the speech from Obama advisers, while seeking advice from her former strategist, Mark Penn, a loathed figure in the Obama camp.

But the main task for Hillary Clinton at the convention — reaffirming her support for Obama in soaring and unconditional language — dominated her 23-minute speech. She betrayed none of the anger and disappointment that she still feels, friends say, and which has especially haunted her husband.

Declaring herself to be “a proud supporter of Barack Obama”, Hillary Clinton urged Democrats to put aside their loyalty to her and unite behind Obama — or risk continuing Bush administration policies under the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain.

Hillary at the convention in Denver, Colorado. (Reuters)

“Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose,” Hillary Clinton said, beaming as the convention hall burst into applause. “And you haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership.” She added, “No way, no how, no McCain.”

Obama praised Hillary Clinton’s speech as he watched last night from Montana. “That was excellent, that was a strong speech,” Obama said from Billings. “She made the case for why we’re going to be unified in November and why we’re going to win this election. I thought she was outstanding.”

With the television cameras trained tightly on Hillary Clinton on stage and former President Bill Clinton in a VIP box, Hillary Clinton smiled broadly at times and punched the air with ferocity during the tough talk against Republicans, while Clinton lovingly looked on tight-lipped. And yet, reality intrudes: many of her top fundraisers said this week that they were still refusing to work for Obama and were angered by their treatment at the convention.

For their part, Obama advisers were full of expectations. Several of them repeated how “gracious” Hillary Clinton had been this week. Privately, though, aides say they and Obama have been eager to move on from Hillary Clinton’s star turn at the convention, which has been a source of melodrama for Democrats who have not entirely healed from the duo’s bruising primary.

Among them are the Clintons themselves: While Hillary Clinton is in the midst of a “catharsis”, friends say, Clinton remains angrier than people realise about the Obama campaign’s portrayal of his wife as deceitful and of his administration as middling and his political tactics as, at times, racially charged.

Friends have been urging Clinton to move on, and counselling the couple to focus their energy and emotions on McCain.

At one point in her speech, though, Hillary Clinton herself paid homage to her husband’s successes — in one sense, making up for the absence of praise from Obama.

Hillary Clinton also provided some of the night’s sharpest lines of attack on McCain in her convention speech. “It makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities, because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart,” she said, referring to the site of the Republican National Convention.

Introduced by her daughter, Chelsea, who called her “my hero”, Hillary Clinton was met with a lengthy, loud standing ovation. She sprinkled her opening remarks with personal touches, delighting the crowd by thanking “my supporters, my champions — my sisterhood of the travelling pantsuits”, a reference to her signature sartorial style.

“You never gave in, you never gave up, and together we made history,” Hillary Clinton said.