Through the last few days of the Democratic convention, we have heard a lot of things about the relative wisdom of how they are dealing with Senator McCain and the Republicans. Many on the left, as well as some of the media analysts, have questioned why they have not been harder on the opposition.

In reviewing reaction to the Clinton and Biden speeches, I have seen some blogs and commentaries angry over the fact that the speakers have called McCain a ‘good man’ or ‘my good friend’. Others are angry that the convention has not been a wall-to-wall Bush bashing session.

They point to the 2004 convention and the failure to attack Bush as a key reason for the ultimate defeat of John Kerry. I tend to think they have a point in this 2004 analysis though I am not sure Bush could have lost in 2004.

But I think the reaction fails to recognize that this is not 2004 and is a very unusual election year. Most of our recent Presidential campaigns have featured an incumbent running for re-election so there we had only one candidate to focus on and it was thus more logical to attack the incumbent if he were unpopular. If he were popular, then it was likely he’d win anyway so the attacks didn’t matter.

The two recent cases where we did not have incumbents (1988 and 2000) featured generally-popular incumbents in Reagan and Clinton so there was less of an opening for an attack on the outgoing President. In both cases, you had a Vice President running so it worked to focus the attack on them rather than the incumbent. Indeed in both cases some of the attacks focused indirectly on the idea that the VP would not do as well as the outgoing President.

But 2008 is not 2004 and, unlike the situation that year, President Bush is already very unpopular with the voters and for this reason I think the Democrats are being wise in holding back. Voters are already increasingly-tired of the Republican brand, so I am not sure that they need to attack that much. Most of the speakers touched on these facts enough to remind voters why they are mad but then they quite properly moved on.

As to Senator McCain, people are already uncomfortable with his support for President Bush and his connection to the policies of the last 8 years. Voters know Bush and McCain are both Republicans. In addition by largely-refraining from negative campaigning they open up the opportunity to condemn the Republicans and McCain if they take the step of attacking Obama more openly than they have attacked McCain.

The key to the election is not convincing people to vote against McCain but rather to vote for Obama, and the speakers have slowly built a case for why that is what the electorate should do. By contrast, the Republicans need to convince people why they should not vote for Obama, those who will vote for McCain on his own are already in the GOP camp.

With the GOP convention opening just a few days after the end of the Democratic one, this provides the Democrats an opportunity to continue with their softer attack profile and then contrast it with what will probably be a harsher attack pattern in St Paul.