Arkansas Delegates Arriving at DNC Ahead of Convention

KARK's Josh Berry arrived in Charlotte Sunday to follow Arkansas delegates throughout the end that culminates in President Barack Obama's speech Thursday evening.  His reports begin airing Sunday night during KARK News at 10 p.m.

Obama's challenge is to erase any doubts among women and young voters and keep the middle class from choosing Romney's message over his own.

To that end, former President Bill Clinton will put Obama's name into nomination. The 42nd president has been appearing in ads touting Obama's economic policies.

"He's a great validator of what we want. He's viewed as an expert on how to move the economy forward and how to build it from the middle class out," one official said. "There are few people who can speak to that authoritatively, and he's one of them -- because he's done it. He's sat in the chair."

Expect much of the program to play off the president's likeability ratings and how voters feel he can better empathize with their struggles while painting the GOP as more focused on what they call failed policies of the past; the Democrats also will likely paint Ryan's radical reform plans for Medicare and other entitlement programs as rewarding the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

Obama told Time magazine in an interview this week that Democrats are not proposing radical solutions, and the nation doesn't need drastic changes.

"If you're willing to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires, then you can make modest reforms on entitlements, reduce some additional discretionary spending, achieve deficit reduction and still preserve Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid in ways that people can count on," Obama told Time, later adding that the country needs "some commonsense solutions that stay focused on helping middle-class families."

"The only reason that you would have to go further than that is if there's no revenue whatsoever," he said. "And that's a major argument that we're having with the Republicans."

First lady Michelle Obama will also have a prominent role, speaking on the convention's first night.