What if Biden runs?

A few thoughts on a hypothetical third Biden presidential campaign:

Concerns about Hillary Clinton’s email and general trustworthiness have created an opening for a late Biden entry. To use a metaphor our Amtrak-riding veep would no doubt appreciate, if it weren’t for Hillary’s unorthodox email habits as secretary of state and what they may hide, this train probably would have already left the station. But if this reaches the point where even Democratic donors and voters are worried about Hillary’s emails — both admittedly big caveats — there’s room for Biden in the field as a Plan B.

Biden’s positives contrast well with Hillary’s negatives. It’s easy to forget because the vice president has often been the punchline in Obama administration jokes, but Biden has some positive attributes that Clinton conspicuously lacks. Even his frequent gaffes stem from a level of candor not associated with the former secretary of state.

Biden is an amiable fellow who excels at retail politics. He comes across as genuine and likable. He is seen as trustworthy. His appeal to blue-collar white voters isn’t dependent on running against Barack Obama. He has deep bipartisan relationships on Capitol Hill. The big exception is that he is even older than Clinton.

Biden has a lot of ground to make up in the polls. Not only does he trail Clinton, in some cases by more than 40 percentage points, but he is usually behind Bernie Sanders too. The big question is whether his poor poll numbers are driven by the assumption he won’t run and would therefore improve if he took concrete steps toward launching a campaign. On the Republican side, Donald Trump was polling in the low single digits when the conventional wisdom was that he wasn’t going to run. His numbers certainly got better once he actually jumped in the race.

A Biden campaign would put President Obama in an awkward situation. Incumbent vice presidents running for the White House can usually count on at least tacit support from the sitting president during the primaries. But Clinton is an Obama administration veteran in her own right who passed up a chance to divide the Democratic Party with a convention fight after narrowly losing the 2008 nomination to Obama. Is Obama really going to deny Hillary a second time?

It would be tough for former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and others to break out with Biden in the race. So far, nobody but Sanders has gained any traction as a Democratic alternative to Hillary. Biden would make it even harder for them to do so.

Would the Democrats really nominate an old white guy? For all the obstacles Biden faces, from building a national campaign and grassroots networks in the key primary states so late to wooing enough donors to stay competitive in the money race, this might be the biggest. The Democrats have an opportunity to follow up electing the first black president with the election of the first woman president. Would they really pass it up to nominate a male Caucasian septuagenarian?

My money is on Hillary even if Biden does decide to run. She has huge advantages and I think it would take a major development in the email story to even get Democrats to think twice about nominating her. But Biden could at least make it interesting.