If we nominate a centrist...that's how we got Trump in the first place.

[DanTex]

32. I don't know about that.

Biden ran for president over and over, and never got far until now, where he's basically running on the Obama legacy. He's always had the "gaffe" thing, and now it's arguably worse, he's clearly not as quick on his feet as he used to be. If anything, Hillary I think had a more impassioned base of support than Biden. I don't see much passion at all for Biden, maybe for Mayor Pete of the current centrists, but Pete is a far cry form Obama. Biden does have more folksiness, and also the blue collar thing, I'll give you that, but overall he is extremely similar to Clinton, with some relative strengths and weaknesses both. Add to that the fact that Trump is now an incumbent, and it leads to a very shaky formula for winning.

If you combine what you call his "riskiness that has nothing to do with being a centrist" with the risk that I and many others believe comes with centrism, then you get a lot of risk. Especially with the IWR and NAFTA votes. Hillary clearly suffered in the GE because of both of those. Trade agreements, rightly or wrongly, are not popular, especially not in industrial states. The press somehow lets Trump pretend he "opposed" Iraq, but there too, people are broadly aware that Iraq is the source of a lot of the problems in the Middle East right now, and also of what a huge waste of lives and money it was. Trump is obviously going to hammer Biden on both, like he did Clinton.

There's a lot more than pundits allow to the argument that the conditions in the country in 2016 are what led to Trump, like Yang says Trump is the symptom, not the disease. Remember, all the pundits in 2016 didn't just think Clinton would be the best candidate, they also thought Trump would (A) never win the GOP nom, and (B) get crushed in the general. Even Republicans like Lindsey Graham thought that. If ever there's an event that calls for a radical re-thinking of conventional wisdom, it's Trump's election, even with Russia and Comey and all that.

If I were looking for a centrist, I would agree with you on Mayor Pete. But I think we need a new direction.