WASHINGTON (AFP) - Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have put on a convincing show of personal amity, but political calculations are not far behind as the Democrats join forces in the battle for the White House.

If former president Bill Clinton still nurses grievances from this year's bruising primary epic, and a dwindling band of his wife's supporters are threatening to vote for Republican John McCain, Hillary Clinton at least has moved on.

"I don't see any divergence of interests. She needs to do everything she can to get Senator Obama elected president, and be seen doing everything she can," said William Galston, a former adviser to Bill Clinton.

"I think it's in Senator Obama's interest to have Senator Clinton campaign regularly and enthusiastically for him. It's also in her interest to do that," he said, explaining that Clinton's own future in the party is at stake.

The two senators staged their first joint campaign rally in the aptly named New Hampshire town of Unity last week. Both spoke passionately of their desire for unity to end Republican rule for the sake of a nation ardent for change.

But as Obama prepares for more campaigning in Independence, Missouri on Monday, they still face tricky questions over what role Clinton may take in the Obama campaign and at the Democrats' August convention in Denver -- and eventually, what job she might solicit in an Obama administration.

Bill Clinton is said still to be smarting over being portrayed as a closet racist by some Obama supporters during the primary campaign, and is taking his wife's agonizing loss personally.

But one of Hillary Clinton's most avid supporters, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, said the former president was certain to join his wife's efforts to elect Obama.

"President Clinton's going to do every single thing that Barack Obama asks him to do," said Rendell, who campaigned tirelessly for the New York governor during her failed bid for the Democratic nomination.

"He's disappointed, just like I am, but he knows the stakes are so high for this country. He's going to get out there in typical Bill Clinton fashion and make a great case for Senator Obama as our next president."

The former president, still a star draw for many in the party, has given only tepid backing to Obama. But both he and his wife Friday each donated the maximum legal limit of 2,300 dollars to the Obama campaign, aides said.

That financial gesture of reconciliation came after Obama gave the same amount to help retire the former first lady's campaign debts of 22.5 million dollars.

His donation came at an elite gathering late Thursday of top Clinton fundraisers, where the two senators rolled out their unity show before heading to the New Hampshire town where they split the primary vote exactly in January.

Most of those in attendance appeared eager to take the fight to the Republicans on Obama's behalf, although one guest told ABC the event at Washington's historic Mayflower Hotel felt like a "dentist's appointment."

Obama has been reaching out by hiring Clinton campaign staffers, most of whom will be out of a job this month.

Opinion polls meanwhile suggest that disaffected Clinton voters are returning to the Democratic fold. The proportion that was threatening to vote for McCain rather than Obama was as high as one-third a month ago.

But now only 11 percent of Clinton supporters still plan to defect to McCain, according to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released Tuesday.

Recent polls also suggest little appetite for Clinton to run as Obama's vice presidential nominee, despite persistent demands for that "dream ticket" from some of her supporters.

Clear majorities of independent voters in four battleground states where Obama is now beating McCain -- Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin -- are against the idea, according to the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

AFP, June 29, 2008