Nine lessons from the Republican and Democrat conventions

What’s the bottom line so far?

The Democrats think they will win by making the race a referendum on Donald Trump (more the person than the policies, though they hate both). They are effectively trying to run Joe Biden as a generic Democrat.

The Republicans think the path to victory is to make the race a choice, Trump versus Biden, to say the Democratic Party is dominated by the far left and that Biden is unable or unwilling to stop that oppressive movement. Drawing a sharp contrast between the two parties was the whole point of Vice President Mike Pence’s speech to conclude the convention’s third night. For the most part, though, Republicans focused on the positive case for Trump, not the negative one for Biden. They featured lots of everyday Americans who said they had been helped by Trump’s policies, sometimes adding that he had reached out to them personally.