For all of the reasons that the estimable Charles Pierce gives, Joe Biden running for president in 2020 is a terrible idea. He has, twice, been proven to be a terrible presidential candidate, is gaff prone, not mentioned by Pierce was one of the stupidest things I've ever known a Democratic candidate to do, cribbing a speech from Neil Kinnock, head of the British Labour Party at the time, and his record in, especially the Senate was even worse.
Joe Biden is polling as the most popular possible Democratic candidate right now because he was Barack Obama's Vice President but we've run vice presidents before, Hubert Humprey, Fritz Mondale, Al Gore. All of whom benefitted from name recognition but which didn't result in them becoming president. I will admit that in the case of Gore, he had it stolen from him but that's neither here nor there.
Charles Pierce is also right that, though Biden is very popular with the Sunday Talk Show, 24-7 babblers and the money guys, he is greatly past his sell-by date with the Democratic Party which just injected quarts and quarts of new blood into the party. If you'll forgive me getting Biblical, new wine in old skins is a guaranteed disaster, we have that on the highest of authority.
Pierce notes that though Hillary Clinton* has had more success as a presidential candidate, twice, than Biden did, she's being told to retire as Biden is being promoted. That he's an old white man while she's a younger old white woman is certainly relevant to why that is.
I don't want to see any of the candidates over 70 run, though they are in my own age cohort. And I don't just mean the ones who, like Sanders, is only a Democrat when it suits his purpose. Our time in THAT office has passed, I'm hoping one of the results of the Trump disaster will be that it turns off the voters on geezers as president. While a rare few can hold major office in the legislative branch such as Nancy Pelosi, I've watched Joe Biden for his entire career in public office, on his best stretch of it, he was no Nancy Pelosi. His most prominent leadership role was when he presided over the Senate Judiciary Committee and it was awful to behold. Pierce points out that he was the one who failed to support Anita Hill and the other woman who was prepared to testify that Clarence Thomas was a serial sexual harrasser. Biden chickened out then, he would never stand up to Republicans and the Republican media. He would be the worst of Bill Clinton without his campaign skills. If there's another thing I don't want it's another weak man as a Democratic President.
* Sorry about posting this hours ago without specifying who I was talking about here. Editing, sometimes it works.
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