We are not the only ones to wonder what the Democrats were doing last night. Fending off a sense that Barack Obama is “foreign,” we are told. Making his wife less scary. Convincing America that he is “just like us.” All that is good, but shockingly basic (and late) for a presidential campaign. It’s also incredibly defensive and beside the point: aren’t the issues and the Bush legacy supposed to be the winning tickets for the Democrats?

One reporter agrees that Obama has a bigger problem:

Is he one of us, and is he qualified? That’s the one that can’t be answered without a direct comparison to his opponent. And the longer Obama has to spend on question one, the less time he has for question two.

None other than James Carville thinks precious time is being wasted. This CNN report echoes what we observed last night:

“The way they planned it tonight was supposed to be sort of the personal — Michelle Obama will talk about Barack Obama personally, Ted Kennedy was a very personal, emotional speech,” Carville said. “But I guarantee on the first night of the Republican Convention, you’re going to hear talk about Barack Obama, commander-in-chief, tax cuts, et cetera, et cetera.”

You haven’t heard about Iraq or John McCain or George W. Bush — I haven’t heard any of this. We are a country that is in a borderline recession, we are an 80 percent wrong-track country. Health care, energy — I haven’t heard anything about gas prices,” Carville also says. “Maybe we are going to look better Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. But right now, we’re playing hide the message.”

But tonight belongs to Hillary Clinton. The focus will be on the drama and the did she/didn’t she really, honestly, truly express her desire to see Obama elected. Again, that’s not about Obama, his qualifications, his gravitas or his 3 a.m. credentials. (You didn’t think that ad had gone away, did you?) At some point they will get to all that and maybe Obama and his running mate Joe Biden will make progress on that front.

But they haven’t yet, and they haven’t much time left.