Bill Clinton: Obama is Commander in Chief | Gerard Baker: Clinton's eulogy | Obama's flamboyant White House tilt | Could rhetoric hinder Obama? | Blog: last night as it happened

Barack Obama last night made a surprise appearance on the stage of the Democratic convention, electrifying the crowd who had not expected to set eyes on their presidential candidate until he formally accepts his party's nomination before 80,000 people at an open air stadium tonight.

Mr Obama unexpectedly appeared to join his running mate, Senator Joe Biden, who had just accepted his vice-presidential nomination, and less than an hour after Bill Clinton delivered an extraordinarily full-throated and unequivocal endorsement of the man who ended his wife's White House ambitions.

After thee days touring battleground states, Mr Obama's appearance broke with the precedent of leaving the third night of the convention exclusively to the vice-presidential nominee. He hugged Mr Biden and his wife Jill, while the Clintons looked on from above at a young new leader of a party they have dominated for nearly a generation.

Mr Obama took the microphone, and immediately heaped praise on the Clintons, who in the past 48 hours have issued a forceful call to arms for party unity after months of tensions and a bruising primary battle that left the former president's reputation tarnished and the man himself seething over claims that he had deployed racially charged tactics during his wife's nominating battle.

"If I'm not mistaken Hillary Clinton rocked the house last night," Mr Obama said, referring to her Tuesday night speech, as the Former First Lady looked on. "And, just in case you were wondering, Bill Clinton reminded us what it was like when you put people first. Thank you President Clinton."

It was a carefully choreographed moment, but capped two days of almost exclusive attention on the Clintons that Mr Obama hopes will now end a melodrama that has threatened to split his party and threaten his White House hopes.

Mr Clinton's speech was a tour de force, after weeks of lingering resentments between Mr Clinton and the Obama campaign and a primary battle in which both he and his wife claimed that his wife's rival was unfit for the job of commander-in-chief. He declared that Mr Obama "is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world."

Mr Clinton was following his wife's similarly forceful backing of Mr Obama on Tuesday night. Yet the former president went even further in his praise, declaring something that Mrs Clinton did not: that Mr Obama is ready to be commander-in-chief and lead America in a dangerous world.

"Everything I learned in my eight years as president and in the work I've done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job," Mr Clinton said to roars of approval and thousands of waving, handheld American flags.

He added: "Barack Obama is ready to be President of the United States." Referring to his own presidential bid 16 years ago - and actually echoing his wife's own talking points during her primary fight against Mr Obama - Mr Clinton said: "We prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief. Sound familiar? It didn't work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won't work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history."

Only three weeks ago Mr Clinton, when asked, could not even bring himself to say that his wife's former rival was ready to be president. In addition to the accusations of racism, he has also felt insulted and angered by what he has felt has been Mr Obama's belittling of his eight-year presidency and achievements in office.

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