(3) Winning is everything. Back to John Kerry for a moment: Kerry surged to the nomination in 2004 after Democrats recoiled from Howard Dean because of perceived electability problems and in that cycle Democrats were desperate to beat George W. Bush.

By every objective measure we have, Biden is best positioned to beat Trump.

If you want to, you can make the argument that this or that Democratic candidate could eventually beat Trump. There’s polling you might be able to interpret as encouraging.

But in terms of the facts we have before us right now, Biden has given every indication that he is—far and away—the most difficult challenger for Trump. In the entire universe of national matchup polls between Trump and Biden taken since last March, Trump has led Biden exactly twice, once by 4 points and once by 2 points. For almost the entire duration, Biden has led Trump by double-digits. His current lead over the incumbent president, nationally, is 10 points.

This is unheard of in modern politics.