Joe Biden is the Democratic Mitt Romney

David Byler: “When Joe Biden first entered the presidential race, he was supposed to be a Jeb Bush redux — a relic of a bygone era who would quickly be swept away by candidates who appealed to the party’s insurgent wing. But so far that hasn’t happened — instead Biden enjoyed a solid post-announcement bounce in the polls and now leads his closest competitor, Bernie Sanders, by double digits. That prompted some to make the opposite case, and Biden became Hillary Clinton — an establishment-backed, well-resourced, Barack Obama-affiliated, lifetime Democrat fighting against the progressives.”

“But Biden isn’t either of these politicians. He’s not nearly as dominant as Clinton, who scared off almost all of her competitors in 2016. So far, Biden’s candidacy has failed to intimidate even Eric Swalwell. Unlike Bush, Biden is arguably more in step with contemporary Democrats, both on substance and style, than Bush was. Instead, Biden is more like Mitt Romney: a poll leader and plausible nominee who seems acceptable to the party establishment but faces some big obstacles in his quest for the nomination.”