After the game Kerry was heading for Cape Canaveral, Fla., and Norfolk, Va. He plans a rally in Philadelphia tomorrow night before continuing on to Boston to accept the nomination on Thursday.
Tonight, former Vice President Al Gore, who came so tantalizingly close to the White House, will deliver a much-anticipated speech as the Democratic Party opens its four-day national convention.
Gore, whose cliff-hanger defeat four years ago remains a sore point and a dynamic motivation for his party, has been one of the most vocal and passionate critics of the man who defeated him, George W. Bush.
Now, party strategists hope he will refrain from the red-meat rhetoric and focus on the 2000 presidential election result in Florida and the frustrations of blacks and others who believe they were disenfranchised.
Also on tap tonight: former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, who will be introduced by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
As several large protests flared yesterday in the streets of Boston, the delegates flocked into the expectant, tense city knowing that Kerry and Bush are locked in a statistical tie for voter support.
Though television coverage will be minimal, a penetrating, defining performance by Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina - or by Bush and Vice President Cheney next month at the Republican National Convention in New York - could make a difference.
"George Bush has had the bully pulpit for three years," Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe said. " . . . This is our time. This is the time millions of people are going to tune in and they're going to take a real serious look at us."
The main broadcast networks each plan only three hours of convention coverage this week, the smallest amount of time ever devoted to these centerpieces of political Americana since the television era began.
