A Cruz/Warren race is the election America deserves. A Trump/Biden race is the election America wants.

Dude, I think this is happening.

From his vacation spot on Kiawah Island, Mr. Biden is giving the strongest signal yet that he is actively considering making a third run at the presidency. He is asking political allies for advice and gauging the strength of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign as he weighs his options, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Biden is expected to announce his decision next month…

He’d have to start from scratch. Mr. Biden has no super PAC to back his candidacy with independent fundraising or a network of paid staff in early voting states. And Mrs. Clinton has already signed up some of the party’s most seasoned pollsters, fundraisers and data analysts. His entry also could prompt Mrs. Clinton’s supporters to rally around her if her potentially historic candidacy is threatened.

“She’s been working at this a long time and has built a massive operation,” said Brady Quirk-Garvan, chairman of the Charleston County Democratic Party in South Carolina. “Even people who like the idea of Joe Biden running would have to sit there and think, ‘Can he build an operation that would be able to defeat Hillary in four to six months?’ That’s much harder to do in this day and age than you would think.”

We’re in a weird place politically when Democratic panic over the Clintons leads to the thought, “Hey, how about Joe Biden?” No one’s really answered this point yet:

What is the case for Biden over HRC?

Youth?❌
Gender?❌
Broad party support?❌
Lefty cred?❌
Money?❌
Superior campaigner?❌

Makes no sense.

— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) August 2, 2015

Don’t forget that Biden’s the only person in America who carries more Obama baggage than Hillary does. The best case you can make for him is that he’s way, way, way more relatable than Herself is, a touch of populism in a campaign dominated thus far by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, but even that comes with a major caveat that frequently he appears to be, well, a doofus. And unlike Trump or even Sanders, the guy can’t remotely claim to be an “outsider.” He took his seat in the U.S. Senate the same year Hillary Clinton graduated from law school. If there’s any political genius to Biden, it’s that he’s somehow maintained his image as Average Joe despite having been in Washington since the Nixon administration.

But let’s say he gets in. Is that good news or bad news for Democrats? I think a liberal could see it both ways. On the one hand, a three-way race suddenly makes Bernie Sanders much more viable in early states. He’s already at 44 percent in New Hampshire in one poll, ahead of Hillary. If, as everyone expects, Biden siphons off more votes from Clinton in the center than from Sanders on the left, Sanders becomes a serious threat. On the other hand, if lefties have miscalculated and a huge chunk of Berniemania is really just Dems who loathe Hillary, then having Biden jump in means Sanders could effectively collapse. If he falls back to, say, 15 percent of the vote while Hillary and Biden fight over the other 85, all the “Berniemania” press he’s getting for his rallies will evaporate and the narrative will shift to one about two famous, key members of Obama’s “team of rivals” suddenly struggling to see who’ll carry on his legacy. Sanders will be a forgotten man, a curio supported only by the parties’ fringier leftists.

Incidentally, when was the last time two candidates from the tippy top part of a sitting president’s administration faced off in a primary? Primary battles rarely boil down to policy differences because the contenders largely agree on the issues, but a “Biden vs. Clinton” race might take that to new depths. It’d probably quickly become a choice between whether Democrats prefer the narrative of a First! Woman! President! with very serious ethical issues and oceans of cash at her disposal to the likable, salt-of-the-earth incumbent VP who’s apt to say something weird and embarrassing at any given moment. Biden could attack her for her natsec/e-mail problems as the tip of the Clinton scandal iceberg and work his way down from there. Clinton could attack him for … what, exactly? Foot-in-mouth disease? Old, old, old plagarism scandals? I think she’d need to play the gender card and stick with it. It’s her only obvious advantage.