Ilana Wexler, the 13-year-old founder of KidsforKerry.org, delighted the convention delegates with a speech in which she urged children to make sure their parents vote this fall, noting along the way how Vice President Dick Cheney recently "used a very bad word." She said she would be in time out for using such a word, and urged voters to put the Bush administration into a long timeout this fall.

The seventh-grader from Oakland, Calif., met Kerry last February and last week he invited her to speak at the convention, which will formally nominate the Massachusetts senator Wednesday night.

Teresa Heinz Kerry's remarks to the convention capped a day of anticipation about what she would say in the wake of a controversy over recently telling a conservative newspaper columnist from her hometown of Pittsburgh to "shove it."

The Democrats opened Tuesday's proceedings by approving a nonbinding party platform outlining Kerry's stance on a broad range of issues such as health care, taxes and Iraq.

The platform, the subject of intense debate among Democrats in past years but supported without complaint this year, accuses Bush of rushing to war in Iraq without adequate international support but also pledges to expand the military and special forces.

Kerry, on the final day of a cross-country tour that will bring him to Boston Wednesday, challenged Bush on the war on terror by vowing to extend the Sept. 11 commission's work for another 18 months and calling for swift implementation of its recommendations.

The United States "simply must act, not as partisans, but as patriots," Kerry, a Navy veteran, said as he stood in front of the battleship Wisconsin moored on the Norfolk, Virginia, waterfront.

"Leadership requires that we act decisively. Not talk. Not vague promises. Not excuses," Kerry said. Bush has said he wants to study the report before deciding on a course of action.