BOSTON, July 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Brushing aside harsh attacks, former rivals competing for the US Democratic presidential nomination pledged here Tuesday at the 44th Democratic National Convention to do everything they could to help John Kerry win the November elections.

    Among them was former Vermont governor Howard Dean, the once front-runner in opinion polls for the nomination. "I may not be the nominee," said Dean, "but...for the next 100 days I'll be doing everything that I can to make sure that John Kerry and John Edwards" can win the presidential elections.

    A staunch opponent to the Iraq war from the very start and a declared representative of "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," Dean said he would "stand shoulder to shoulder with" Kerry to fight for health insurance for all Americans and a job program that would create jobs, and to stand up for a foreign policy that relies on truth.

    Carol Moseley Braun, a former Senator from Illinois, said Kerry would "make America safer," and have a "strong and sensible foreign policy."

    Kerry would restore the country's honor and regard in the world by respecting the aspirations of the world's people, and by working with others to address the global issues of health and human rights, environment and education, and trade, she said at the FleetCenter, the site of the four-day convention that opened Monday.

    In an apparent response to Kerry's appeal for a "positive campaign," the speakers rarely directly attacked the Bush administration. Instead, they focused on Kerry's experience, his plan and policies.

    In his speech, Representative Richard Gephardt of Missouri, another former rival of Kerry, said if elected, Kerry would turn around the "worst job-creation record" in the United States since former US president Herbert Hoover in the early 1930s, and would take on the terrorists where they lived before they could threatenthe country.

    Kerry had the strength to keep the nation strong, and would "never pursue a go-it-alone policy in the foreign policy area that leaves America isolated from its friends and hinders the hunt for our enemies," he said.

    Kerry and Edwards, both senators, are to be officially nominated presidential and vice presidential candidates of the Democratic Party to challenge President George W. Bush in the November elections. Enditem