The party of President George W. Bush and his would-be successor, Arizona Sen John McCain, has sent a slew of its leading stars to crash Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama's party in the electoral battleground state of Colorado.

Take Mr Mitt Romney.

The former Massachusetts governor, who dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination and is said to be on Mr McCain's short list for a vice presidential running mate in the Nov 4 election, came to Denver for lunch with reporters and a splashy news conference to hammer home a message that Mr Obama is not ready to lead.

'We want to make sure that beyond the glitz and the confetti and the celebrity, that we talk about the facts,' he said with other party leaders standing at his side.

'Barack Obama is a charming and fine person with a lovely family but he's not ready to be president of the United States.'

Mr Romney declined to comment on his own vice-presidential chances, though he indicated that he had not spoken recently to Mr McCain.

Mr McCain is expected to name his pick on Friday in an effort to grab attention away from Mr Obama, who will accept his party's nomination before some 75,000 people at an open-air football stadium on Thursday night.

Perhaps some Republicans will be in the crowd. In Denver on Tuesday, with Obama T-shirts being sold at stands throughout the city, Republican volunteers passed out Frisbees with their party's colors and the McCain campaign worked out of an office it called the 'Not Ready '08 Response Centre'.

Stealing the limelight
McCain allies were looking to steal the limelight wherever they could. Mr Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who dropped out of the Republican presidential race earlier this year, chose on Tuesday for a tour of an exhibit in Denver on understanding the threat of terrorism.

Mr Romney picked up the theme of national security in his attack on the Democratic candidate.

'We'd still be the land of liberty and a great nation, but I'm afraid that the policies of Barack Obama would make America a weaker nation,' he said.

Republican elected officials hammered Obama on domestic policy, one of Tuesday's themes at the Democratic convention.

'Barack Obama was AWOL, nowhere to be found on the issue of immigration,' said Florida Rep Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

Others played up tensions in the Democratic party fuelled by New York Sen Hillary Clinton's loss in the primaries to Mr Obama, which has dominated convention coverage this week.

'When you talk to Democrats, there's a lot of disunity,' said Tennessee Rep Marsha Blackburn at the same news conference with Romney and Diaz-Balart.

The Republicans hold their convention in St. Paul, Minnesota next week. Not a model of unity themselves, many party members are said to be staying away.

All the more reason to get into the Democrats' act. One Republican operative said this week would be 'more fun' than St. Paul anyway. -- REUTERS