In the Headlines

"Party Unity Tops Agenda For Democrats" (Shailagh Murray and Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post) - Sen. Barack Obama launched a four-day tour of battleground states Sunday to coincide with Monday's opening of the Democratic convention and its ambitious agenda of selling Obama to a national audience, presenting a forceful case against Republican rival John McCain and unifying a party still recovering from a bruising primary.

"Poll: More than half of Clinton backers still not sold on Obama" (Susan Page, USA Today) - Fewer than half of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters in the presidential primaries say they definitely will vote for Barack Obama in November, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, evidence of a formidable challenge facing Democrats as their national convention opens here today.

"Praise of McCain could haunt Biden" (Kenneth Vogel, The Politico) - Within three hours of the announcement that Joe Biden would be Barack Obama's vice presidential running mate, their Republican rival John McCain was up with a striking ad highlighting Biden's praise for McCain. And there's plenty more where that came from.

"GOP opens 'war room' at Democratic convention" (Andrew Taylor, AP) - They're grossly outnumbered by a swarm of Democrats, but national Republicans have set up shop in Denver, hoping to thrust themselves into the media's coverage of the Democratic convention.

On the Morning Shows

Today - Obama communications director Robert Gibbs, on the view that Joe Biden talks too much and has been warned to stay on message: "We've got a very strong ticket and we can't afford the same 4 more years of the Bush policies...the John McCain that America has seen over the last few months is not the McCain that most people thought they saw in 2000, voting 95% of the time with George W. Bush."

On Hillary Clinton: "If you're a delegate here, Clinton is supporting Barack Obama. I think he'll laud Senator Clinton, there's no question that Hillary Clinton's looked at Obama and McCain and chosen that Obama should be the next president of the United States."

(Greg Bobrinskoy contributed to the Morning Report.)