Is Biden too 'nice' for angry Democratic voters?

In the 2020 race to the White House, nice guys might just finish last

Joe Biden.
(Image credit: Illustrated | REUTERS/Jordan Gale, iarti/iStock, Benjamin_Lion/iStock)

Former Vice President Joe Biden will enter the first Democratic presidential debates with 19 rivals taking aim at him — nine on the night he will be onstage, 10 the night he won't be there to defend himself. He is the clear-cut frontrunner and his party's two dozen other White House aspirants have no choice but to try to take him down.

So far, the attacks on Biden's boast that he was able to work with segregationist Democrats of old — an awkward example of civility to offer an increasingly woke party — seem to have fallen flat. In the latest Morning Consult poll, Biden leads by double digits nationally and wins nearly half the African-American vote. Still, the flap speaks to the needle he will have to thread throughout the primary campaign: maintaining his likeability and positivity in a political climate where nice guys finish last.

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W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.