Sean Trende: A Tale of Two Conventions
Sean Trende:
A Tale of Two Conventions: [T]he Republicans… had a very strange convention… largely avoided Mitt Romney, at least until the last night. Chris Christie drew heated criticism…. But it wasn’t just Christie. Marco Rubio… Susana Martinez… Condoleezza Rice… fewer mentions of Romney than Ted Strickland uttered in his speech at the Democratic convention. Challenger conventions are also typically filled with bashing of the incumbent president. But Rice and Christie never mentioned Barack Obama…. This all may tell us two things about how Team Romney views the race. First, they don’t see a lot of value in bashing Obama…. The more interesting observation, though, is that the Romney camp seems to believe that the Republican brand is a greater danger to a Romney win than Romney himself…. This is why the Republicans invested so much time and effort trying to reintroduce their party. It’s a rebranding effort…. I don’t think it was particularly successful, but that is what I think is going on.
The Democratic convention, by contrast, was more like a typical challenger convention. Each speaker flayed Romney, and attempted to reintroduce their candidate…. But more surprising was the amount of red meat dished out in prime time. Sandra Fluke’s speech was not your typical incumbent fare. It was not a cheerful, forward-looking speech. It was angry, warning of a dystopian future if the Republicans won. Elizabeth Warren’s speech -- at least the first half -- was similar in tone…. While Republicans studiously avoided cultural issues, the Democrats brought them to the forefront….
For now, it is just worth noting that while both sides profess to be confident of victory, their actions belie a low degree of certainty about their odds in November.
