DENVER — From the CFR/Foreign Affairs booth here* at the Democratic National Convention, sandwiched between the workspaces of TIME, the Christian Science Monitor and the huge space shared by the Washington Post and Slate, foreign policy issues appear not to rank very highly so far on the radar of the working press. Day One’s focus on “The Family,” where Michelle Obama and Nancy Pelosi took center stage, barely touched on international issues. Democrats divided their convention into themes, and “National Security” doesn’t get its spot in the sun until Wednesday. Still, with American troops embroiled in two major conflicts, the global economy flagging due to high energy prices and the damage done by America’s credit markets, several foreign journalists have remarked to me that they are shocked that global issues have not been more prominently on display. “We thought Iraq would be front-and-center in all discussions here,” says Max Deveson of the BBC. “So far, it’s about the show, not the substance.” Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), the Senate Foreign Relations committee chairman whose selection as Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) running mate led to a flurry of foreign policy analysis over the weekend, will speak Wednesday. A question on many minds here: Does the “Gelb-Biden” plan, the proposal for a more federalized Iraqi government structure advocated by the senator and CFR President Emeritus Leslie H. Gelb since 2006, now become part of the Obama platform? Biden’s foreign policy positions are well-known otherwise and tracked in detail by CFR.org. It’s hardly controversial to note at this point that political conventions in modern times really are more style than substance, and so carefully channeling the “message” of each party into pre-planned theme days makes some sense. Still, foreign policy is not totally absent. John Irbittsen of the Toronto’s Globe and Mail, one of the sharper foreign observers of U.S. politics, writes that among Obama’s tasks here is putting forth a detailed economic program, perhaps one which puts Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on the spot for his advocacy of free trade, and capitalizes on public unease over everything from the Iraq war to high energy prices.

*CFR.org Executive Editor Michael Moran will blog from the DNC in Denver through this week.