Biden his time

I remember seeing a Hillary Clinton campaign general interest meeting (GIM) poster just a few weeks into last year; it’s when I really knew I was at college. Instead of focusing on a critical gubernatorial race that the party ended up losing, factions of Tufts’ Democrats got “ready” for a candidate that was already polling at over 60 percent. A year later, Clinton might just need another GIM. Clinton is hemorrhaging ground to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders ahead of Tuesday's debate. Sanders, a self-described socialist, just drew over 20,000 supporters at an event in Boston -- 10,000 times the average attendance of Tufts football games (not including parents).

The problem for Democrats is choosing between voting for a candidate they prefer and a candidate that would win the general election. Unfortunately for Sanders, his leftist nature probably eliminates any chance of his winning the presidency. The other candidates in the pool are polling about as well as I am. So a Democrat is left to choose between a candidate with no chance at the general election and Clinton. Hardly a choice.

Coalescing around an established, old-hat candidate is uncharacteristic for the Democratic party. This is the same party that nominated Bill Clinton, an unknown Arkansas governor, JFK, a second term senator from Massachusetts and of course Barack Obama, who went from Illinois State Senate to President of the United States in four years. The party needs another candidate. But trying to break into a campaign where 70 percent of voters are with two front-runners is tough; imagine a candidate pitching that to donors. It’s also October, and we are just three months from the first polls opening in Iowa.

The solution then is a candidate that does not need to break in, one that has a strong network of voters and donors already in place. Somebody needs to ask Democrats if they are only voting for Clinton because they want a candidate that can beat whichever Republican emerges. It is not much of a campaign when only one of the candidates can conceivably win the White House.

As of now, unless President Obama runs for an unconstitutional third term or the Pope figures out he is a natural born citizen, there is only one person that could really shift the Democratic field. Vice President Joe Biden has the voters, the record and the donors to make this race interesting. Clinton’s likeability numbers on the other hand make Jeb Bush’s (see last week) look decent. Biden, though, is well-known, reliably liberal and could actually win a general election.

The vice president would force Democrats to decide why they are voting for Clinton. Because just reasoning that she is the only one that can win and thus deserves votes is terrible logic. It goes contrary to the party’s history, and will result in a shock during the general election campaign. Clinton stands a strong chance to win even with Joe Biden in the race, but at least she would be forced to run a proper campaign, rather than treating the race as the party-driven fait accompli that it has been.