WEST WARWICK — Rhode Island Democrats have long been known for contentious primaries and in-your-face fractiousness, but 2008 is shaping up as a year of unity as Democratic leaders and elected officials have move quickly to heal any wounds left from the state’s March presidential primary won by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

In a lovefest last night, the Democratic State Convention unanimously — and enthusiastically — endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president and listened to praise for the Illinoisan from all four members of the state’s congressional delegation.

Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed and Representatives Patrick Kennedy and James Jr. Langevin all praised Obama.

“We have to elect senator Barack Obama as the next president,” Reed said. “John McCain has served his country heroically but his vision is pure Bush.

“Barack Obama will lead us and we will all have to make sure Barack Obama is not just our candidate, but our next president,” Reed declared.

The convention — a gathering of the 209 members of the Democratic State Committee — also unanimously endorsed Reed, Kennedy and Langevin for reelection. (Whitehouse is not up for reelection until 2012.)

Rhode Island Republicans hold their state convention Thursday at Kirkbrae Country Club, in Lincoln. The GOP has yet to field candidates against Reed or Kennedy but it does have an opponent for Langevin. Mark Zaccaria, a former member of the North Kingstown Town Council, has announced that he will challenge Langevin, who has never lost a state or federal election.

There were no discordant Democratic voices last night, although some Clinton fans said they hoped that Obama would choose the New York senator as his running mate. “I think putting her on as vice president would be a dream ticket,” said Edna O’Neill Mattson, the party’s national committeewoman.

The other major business of last night’s confab at the West Valley Inn, in House Speaker William Murphy’s district, was choosing delegates to round out the state delegation to the Democratic National Convention, in Denver in August.

Chosen as at-large delegates were Elizabeth Pirek, of East Greenwich; Maureen Martin, of South Kingstown; Elizabeth Noonan, of Pawtucket; and Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano, D-North Providence. Picked as pledged party leaders were Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva Weed and Speaker Murphy.

The one unpledged delegate chosen was Jill Padwa, of Providence, and Lauren Nocera, of Providence, was picked as the alternate delegate at large. The delegates chosen last night join the delegates chosen at the March 4 primary and the so-called superdelegates, who go to the convention by virtue of their status as elected officials or party leaders.

William Lynch, state party chairman, drew applause when he urged prayers for a speedy recovery for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts senator and father or Patrick Kennedy.

Patrick Kennedy said in an interview that his father will head home to Hyannisport, Mass., today to recuperate from his surgery at Duke University Medical Center for a cancerous brain tumor. “It went better than anyone expected,” the younger Kennedy said.

His father is focused on the future, Kennedy said, and especially to working with a President Obama on universal health-care legislation.

“I know he is planning for the future and being chairman of the committee that will consider the health-care legislation when Obama is president,” Kennedy said. “That is what he is talking and thinking about.”

“It adds a great deal of poignancy to his recovery,” said Kennedy. “But that’s how he sees it, he has to recover so he can get health care for the millions of people who don’t have access to the care that we do.”

Patrick Kennedy said his father wants to begin writing the universal health-care legislation “this fall” so that “it can be ready when Obama takes over in January.”

Universal health care has been a legislative passion of Edward Kennedy since he was first elected to the Senate in 1962. His recent illness, his son said, has given his quest a new urgency.

“He really wants to make sure that he’s ready to go so that he can make health care available to everyone else who needs it,” Kennedy said.

smackay@projo.com