Obama 'offers new hope' for US

Michelle Obama used stories from her personal life to emphasise her husband's American values and that he understood what the United States needs - despite his exotic-sounding name.

US Senator Edward Kennedy, the sole surviving son of America's most celebrated political dynasty, said the 47-year-old Illinois senator offered "new hope" and that America would "scale the heights" again under Mr Obama's leadership.

Liberal heavyweight Mr Kennedy, who was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour in May, said "nothing, nothing" was going to keep him away from the convention.

But the opening night of the Democratic National Convention lacked any serious criticism of President George Bush or Mr Obama's Republican rival John McCain. Instead, it was a relatively soft introduction to Mr Obama, his life, his values, and the aims for his presidency.

In a prime-time television address, carried live by the US networks, Mrs Obama, 44, said she believed her husband would be "an extraordinary president". She used her most high profile speech of the campaign to date to expose details of Mr Obama's personal story to a wider audience and to introduce the man she married to America.

"What struck me when I first met Barack was that even though he had this funny name, and even though he had grown up all the way across the continent in Hawaii, his family was so much like mine," she said.

Mrs Obama emphasised that her husband, who has struggled to attract support from working class Americans, was raised by working class grandparents; she told voters who are focused on the troubled US economy that his family had struggled to pay the bills; and she said that their families had the same values, a belief in truth and honesty, and that "you can make it if you try".

To loud applause from the delegates, Mrs Obama also praised her husband's former rival Hillary Clinton for putting "those 18 million cracks in that glass ceiling so that our daughters and our sons can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher".

Mrs Obama said her husband was running for president to end the war in Iraq responsibly, to build an economy that helps every family, and to make sure that healthcare was available to every American.