Boston ? Memories of past glories and of aching setbacks swept the assembled masses Monday night as three Democratic Party icons — former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and near-miss Al Gore — jump-started the party’s national convention.

“Strength and wisdom are not opposing values,” Clinton said in a veiled jab at President Bush, as the four-day John Kerry-fest opened under extraordinarily tight security. “They go hand in hand, and John Kerry has both.”

Clinton was introduced by the junior senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and he delivered a Clintonesque stem-winder that delved deep into policy and portrayed his Democratic Party and Bush’s Republican Party as very different entities.

“They need a divided America, and we don’t,” he said.

But it fell to the party’s most recent nominee — one of its most ill-starred presidential candidates — to make some of the most telling points.

“You win some, you lose some, and then there’s that little-known third category … ,” Gore told the crowd during an impassioned but measured speech. “Take it from me, every vote counts.”

The man who lost the White House to Bush in an election ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and 537 votes in Florida implored Democrats to convert the frustration and bitterness of 2000 into revenge and triumph in 2004.

“Let’s make sure that the Supreme Court does not pick the next president,” Gore said, “but also that this president is not the one who picks the next Supreme Court.”

The 5,000 delegates and others awarded Gore a standing ovation for that line and responded warmly throughout his address — perhaps most warmly when he and his wife, Tipper, indulged in a kiss reminiscent of the prolonged smooch they shared at the last convention.

Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., address the delegates during the Democratic National Convention at the FleetCenter in Boston. The Clintons spoke on the opening night of the convention, at which Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts will accept the party's nomination on Thursday.

The former vice president took a slap at Ralph Nader and reached out to Nader’s supporters, asking those who voted for the third-party candidate in 2000, “Do you still believe that there was no difference between the (Democratic and Republican) candidates?”

Coming tonight: aging liberal lion Sen. Edward Kennedy, taking the spotlight in his home state, and rising star Barack Obama, the Democratic Senate candidate in Illinois, who will deliver a keynote speech that will not be heard as far and wide as many in the past. None of today’s convention events will be covered by the three main broadcast television networks.

Carter and Clinton — the last two Democratic presidents, and both from the South — scored some points as they, in effect, bequeathed the mantle of party leadership to a nominee from the North.

“Tonight I speak as a citizen, eager to join you here in Boston as a foot soldier in the fight for our future, as we nominate a true New England patriot for president,” Clinton said.

Without quite naming Bush, Carter said the nation’s good will “has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations.” And he accused the president of putting “soldiers and sailors in harm’s way” by unnecessarily initiating “wars of choice.”

“In the world at large, we cannot lead if our leaders mislead,” Carter said. “You can’t be a war president one day and claim to be a peace president the next, depending on the latest political polls.”

Bush is spending much of the week out of public sight — a traditional stance for the opponent during a convention — on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. But Republican surrogates offered their views of the proceedings.

“The party has not nominated a mainstream ticket,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, who has a team of 30 aides monitoring events in Boston. “What they’re trying to do is reposition Senator Kerry to make him look like a centrist.”