The people running for the Democratic presidential nomination cover just about every possible minority combination. For starters, there are white women, black women, a Hispanic male and a gay man among the 20 announced candidates.
With such a commitment to diversity, it will be the most fascinating story of 2020 if plain old white guy Joe Biden, the former vice president who announced his candidacy Thursday, is able to capture the Democratic nomination.
This is the third presidential quest for Biden, a former U.S. senator whose previous efforts were total flops. On the other hand, his run in 2008 helped him get picked as Barack Obama’s vice president, a partnership that appeared to work well.
Though Biden has a tendency to babble, and he is now being criticized for another bad habit of touchy-feeliness, he was the guy Obama turned to when the president wanted to work out a deal with the Republicans in charge of Congress.
Biden leads in early polling among Democrats, and his name recognition surely is equal to that of the other most prominent candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. But Biden will ask Democratic voters to walk a middle ground with him.
That will be a tough sell at a time when many Democrats seem determined to jump off the left-wing diving board.
