Trump's Allies Want to Clintonize Joe Biden

Donald Trump is clearly spooked by Joe Biden—but some of the president’s supporters say there’s an easy solution: Make Biden out to be Hillary Clinton, just older and with a longer record of not getting things done in Washington.

Go ahead and try, Biden and his advisers say, offering a list of reasons why they believe that strategy won’t work. Though an old white man is not a history-making candidate like Clinton, Biden’s advisers know their candidate benefits from not being a woman, which they think will save him from the sexism and misogyny that defined 2016. They plan to lean into Biden’s personal story of family tragedy to reinforce what they see as his core image of decency, possibly making Trump’s attacks harder to stick. They also believe that running against Trump will allow the 76-year-old former vice president, who first came to Washington, D.C., 47 years ago, to come off as the candidate of change.