Kerry's convention

The Democratic candidate for the US presidency, Senator John Kerry, guaranteed the backing of a strongly united party that believes nothing could be worse than four more years of George W Bush, Khaled Dawoud reports from Washington

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When Senator Kerry addresses the party's National Convention at its conclusion today, he is expected to outline his policies in order to let the American people know him better and convince them that he is a better alternative than current Republican President George W Bush.

So far, the main source of optimism for the Massachusetts senator is the fact that he has the backing of a united Democratic Party. However, even within the ranks of his party, there is an admission that the main reason behind such unity is the desire to get rid of the Republican administration and not support for Kerry.

A survey, published by The Washington Post on Tuesday, stated that 54 per cent of Americans knew little about Kerry's strategies on the economy, Iraq and the war on terrorism, and 40 per cent dubbed him as "too liberal". Meanwhile, several recent polls have indicated that the split between US voters has left supporters of each candidate more strongly committed to their parties than ever before.

Organisers of the Democratic Party's National Convention (DNC), which opened amid extremely tight security measures in "Fortress Boston" on Monday, clearly sought to portray the party as patriotic and to avoid personal attacks against Bush. Democratic leaders did not even deny reports that they censored all the speakers, except former US President Jimmy Carter, to make sure they were not focussed on bashing Bush.

That was very obvious on the first day of the convention as none of the speakers mentioned the current president by name, referring only to the "president", "the Republican administration" or "those in the White House". The only exception was Senator Edward Kennedy who mentioned Bush's name only once, though in an overall mild speech compared to his previous strong attacks against the Republican administration. "In the depths of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt inspired the nation when he said, 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.' Today we say, the only thing we have to fear is four more years of George Bush," Kennedy said.

Even former Vice President Al Gore, who narrowly lost the 2000 elections and who has led scathing attacks against Bush in recent months, moderated his speech on Monday. Like all other key speakers, he lashed out at Bush's policies, particularly his taxation policy, which Democrats believe has only benefited the rich, and his war against Iraq, which Gore said was unjustified and has not left