Rhode Island delegates took their coffee this morning with Walter Mondale, the former vice president and longtime Democrtaic senator from Minnesota.

Mondale, who was the party's nominee for president in 1984, joined in the partisan raves for Monday's program in the Pepsi Center, headlined by his old colleague from Massachusetts, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, and Barack Obama's wife, Michelle.

"This is the spirit of America,'' Mondale said of the presentation last night.