For the pros and cons, let’s start with the positive: On paper, he may be the most qualified presidential candidate in America: two terms as vice president, three decades in the U.S. Senate, including chairman of the Judiciary Committee and Foreign Relations Committee. He’s run for president twice before. He’s been scandal-free in all that time, save for a 1987 plagiarism beef that looks mild by today’s standards. He has working-class roots, connects with blue-collar “Reagan Democrats,” and is respected by military families. He has easy sense of humor.

Unlike other Democrats I could name, he hasn’t amassed a personal fortune. He’s a public servant committed to public service. As vice president, he’s been exceedingly valuable to Obama, on politics and policy. I’ll cite two examples.

Remember when the intransigence of House Republicans and the petulance of Senate Democrats—and the president himself—threatened to take the country over a “fiscal cliff” in 2013? Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called Biden, his former and longtime colleague, with a simple question: “Does anyone down there know how to make a deal?”

There was, and once Obama tasked his vice president with getting it done, a deal happened. It’s called governing, and Joe Biden knows how to do it.