like Hillary? Inquiring minds want to know.

Paul Ryan would have said to Trump, "Now you have scars just like me."

It's easy to have revisionist nostalgia, but folks need to remember that Biden has not alway been a darling of the left. He's a conservative Democrat who has a lot of baggage, including the Iraq vote.

For example, he is almost single-handedly responsible for Clarence Thomas being on the Supreme Court. He was chair of the Judiciary Committee and completely caved - refused at first to let Anita Hill testify, then allowed the Republicans to drag her through the mud and, after all that, allowed Thomas nomination to be voted out of his Committee and go to the floor where he knew Thomas had enough votes for confirmation. Civil rights and women's groups have never forgotten or fully forgiven him for that but held their fire when he became Obama's running mate. I doubt they would have continued to hold their tongues if he put himself out there to run for president.

Biden only became our sweet Crazy Joe as Obama's vice president. But let's not forget the call on the left to remove Biden from the 2012 ticket and replace him with Hillary, whom folks insisted was much more qualified and electable than Biden. At the time, Hillary was as popular as Biden is now. Only when she began to run for President did they bring out the long knives. And they would have done the same thing to Biden.

As I said, revisionism is easy. Reality is hard.

for his losing his son could have motivated fewer Dems to stay home.

Biden has been ridiculed and targeted by the GOP for years...there will never be a Democratic candidate that doesn't face this.

And the amount and nature of the fodder matters. In this election, the issues that seemed to matter to voters aligned well with their criticisms.

Easy, landslide win. Anyone beats Trump. Biden destroys him.

We can all conduct such exercises in wishful thinking. They're all a waste of time. Reality is what it is.

Biden was tied to the current administration for eight years. People were looking for change (as they always do after two terms of one party's administration), and he would represent a real continuation of the Obama administration. Which would be fine with me, but I'm sure it wouldn't go over all that well with the rest of America.

And then there's the gaffe factor. You've got to admit it.

... Is that the candidate with personality wins. Policy is a distant second.

Clinton / Bush
Bush / Gore
Bush / Kerry
Obama / McCain
Obama / Romney
Trump / Clinton

Seems to be the only constant.

Biden has personality.

His personality sucks, but he has plenty of it.

all that, across the board.

A lot of people can't stand him. To Trump's people, Trump has a much better personality.

Perspective.

That Joe Biden? Yeah, I love him, but as soon as he runs for something all the knives come out.

now, if he had a Cessna, that would be different

He couldn't have told her not to run, but could have privately expressed his preference for Biden to be his successor.

However, that was unlikely to ever happen. I think the President felt some loyalty to Hillary and her husband for their efforts in electing him in 2008 and his reelection in 2012.

It can't ever be acknowledged publicly, but there had to have been an understanding between Obama and Clinton that 2016 would be her time.

and discouraged Biden. there was a NYTIMES article about this

but I don't think he will run.

And he comes off as your average Joe.. I would heavily support him. AND he's got Obamas legacy. If he were willing to run I think he's the right combination.

And likely FL and NC would go blue too.

and is not as tough on big banks as Bernie would like...he would have been damaged and lost too...the party was damaged by the primary.

If Biden wanted to run no one was stopping him. He didn't want to run.

It's hypothetical and this person obviously didn't exist.

Imagine that a time traveling Hillary came back and warned her past self instead if it helps move you along.

Biden could have run if he wanted to, regardless of whether Hillary also run.
Biden didn't want to run.

This is all hypothetical....

What if...

What if Beau Biden hadn't died?

What if Hillary had decided her political baggage was too much?

Most of the primary attacks against Clinton could easily be painted onto Biden and if Clinton represented "the establishment", then Biden would as well. Jill Stein and Gary Johnson would still be there to be the recipient of those sick of whatever the establishment is this year, but unwilling to go to Trump. We're assuming that Clinton lost those Obama 2012 voters on her own, but that's ignoring the steady decline of democrats state by state since President Obama took office and the efficient job that republicans have had painting him as the bearer of all their misfortunes (even though they overwhelmingly hold power in the statehouses). TPP/Syria/Obamacare etc. would all be pinned on Biden as VP. The fact that he was one of the authors of the Crime Bill would be used to depress black turnout. His plagiarism scandal would be played over and over by the media to bring down his trustworthiness numbers.

He's a man, after all.

I think he also voted for NAFTA.

Then Tinkerbell will sprinkle her magic dust and we can all fly away from this hell hole of a country.

The VPs were null this season.

A few more lazy liberals would have gotten their asses to the polls and voted for Hillary.
What if we didn't have to wonder what if?

I love Biden, think he'd be a great president and would have supported him. But it's not like he doesn't have skeletons in his closet. And republicans would have just made up more. They're very, very, good at that.

something we did to HRC, at to lesser degrees gore and kerry

I really have to wonder where all these people suddenly showed up from

Auntie had balls, she'd be my Uncle.

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...with Trump it might not have been as big an issue for Biden.

On a side note I typed in Biden and auto correct gives me video. I hate auto correct!

Really?

in a row?

Roosevelt had three terms, Reagan was succeeded by Bush Sr. Other than those two instances......any others?

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Plus, there was no way he could have stayed in the race after his son's death from cancer. You just couldn't have asked that of anyone.

....among contentious Democrats. Nationwide, among all voters, HILLARY HAS 2.5+ MILLION MORE VOTES THAN TRUMP.

Christ on a trailer hitch.

One of whom wasn't really even in the party.

I would suggest we could have benefited from a more vigorous competition from the get go instead of what we got.

We could have ended up with a winner instead.

BTW, Hillary generated enough of both to win both the primary and general elections on sheer numbers of votes. Don't tell me she was not "exciting enough."

Trump wll be president because the GOP cheats and this time around they encouraged and condoned what amounted to treason.

Without that phone call from Bill, the whole field of players would have been different, so it's very hard to say.

It is not Hillary's fault...Bernie should never have run...this election was too important...ironic that a guy who considers himself a democratic socialist probably helped lose all of the socialist programs from both Roosevelt and Johnson.