Democrats in the United States have launched their case for Barack Obama's re-election at their party convention, looking to draw a sharp contrast with Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
The three-day gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina will conclude with Mr Obama's acceptance of the party nomination in an address in a 74,000-seat downtown football stadium.
The convention gives Mr Obama a chance to recapture the political spotlight from Mr Romney and Republicans, who used their gathering last week to repeatedly attack the president’s economic leadership.
"We will clearly demonstrate why we need to keep Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House," Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said as she formally opened the convention.
The task for Mr Obama and his allies will be to persuade voters disappointed by his first White House term that things will be better the second time around, while portraying the budget-slashing economic remedies offered by Mr Romney and Mr Ryan as unacceptable alternatives.
While Republicans focused on attacking Mr Obama and helping voters get to know Mr Romney during their convention, the Democrats' goal will be to keep up voter enthusiasm for an incumbent in tough economic times.
They will highlight Mr Obama's successes during his first term - from ordering the mission that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to the bailout of the auto industry - while reminding voters of the difficulties Mr Obama faced when he took office.
Mr Romney and Mr Obama are running close in opinion polls before the 6 November election, but Mr Obama hopes to get more of a convention "bounce" in polls than Mr Romney, who gained a few percentage points at most from the Tampa, Florida, event.
A Reuters/Ipsos online poll has given Mr Romney a 1-point edge on Mr Obama, 46% to 45%, a slight improvement from Mr Obama's 4-point lead before the Republican National Convention began last week.
However a Gallup poll yesterday showed Mr Romney's speech last week got the worst scores of any convention acceptance address going back to 1996, when it began measuring them. 38% rated the speech as excellent or good; the previous worst had been Republican John McCain's in 2008, at 47%.
The opening day sees First lady Michelle Obama deliver a speech, countering a successful Republican convention appearance last week by Mr Romney's wife, Ann, who helped present a softer and more personal side of the Republican candidate.
"I think the first lady plays a special role because she will have personal perspective on the president's leadership - his grit and determination during a challenging time for our nation," Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said.
"She is a character witness for the president and someone who can address how he has made decisions as the nation has confronted these challenges," he said.
Mr Obama planned to watch his wife's speech from the White House with his daughters. "I'm going to try not to let them see daddy cry," he told supporters at the Norfolk State University rally. "Because when Michelle starts talking, I start getting all misty."
Former President Bill Clinton will highlight tomorrow’s speakers in an address that could remind voters of his Democratic-led economic growth in the 1990s while appealing to the white working-class Democrats that Mr Obama has had difficulty winning over.
The Obama campaign also plans to use the convention and Mr Obama's speech on Thursday as an organising tool to help them in North Carolina, a battleground state that he won in 2008 but polls show is too close to call this time around.
With the Democratic convention under way Republicans stayed on the offensive, criticising Mr Obama for telling a Colorado television reporter that he would give himself a grade of "incomplete" for his first term.
"Four years into a presidency and it's incomplete? The president is asking people just to be patient with him?" Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said on CBS's "This Morning."
"The kind of recession we had, we should be bouncing out of it," Mr Ryan said. "We're not creating jobs at near the pace we could. That's why we're offering big solutions for the big problems we have today."
Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the president was simply saying more work was needed to turn around a stumbling economy with a persistently high 8.3% unemployment rate.
However Mr Romney himself will give Mr Obama the political spotlight and stay off the campaign trail for most of this week.
He spent today at the luxurious home of former Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey in Woodstock, Vermont, preparing for the three presidential debates that begin on 3 October.
He was working with Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman, who is playing the role of Mr Obama in practice sessions, as well as top campaign aides Beth Myers, Stuart Stevens and Eric Fehrnstrom, among others.
