Eyes turn to Hillary Clinton as Joe Biden slides

In theory, former US vice-president Joe Biden should be romping his way to the Democratic presidential nomination.

2106 Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Picture: AP

What’s wrong with Joe? Former US vice-president Joe Biden should be romping his way to the Democratic presidential nomination.

He is the only grown-up moderate Democrat in the 17-person race with a mix of experience, name recognition and gravitas.

His two main Democrat rivals — Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — are running on wildly ambitious left-wing platforms that should send all moderate Democrats scurrying to Biden’s side.

Yet they are not. The cover story in the most recent issue of New York Magazine describes Biden as the “least formidable frontrunner ever”.

Biden’s aides are worried about why he cannot get traction with voters and why so much attention is being given to Warren and, more recently, Pete Buttigieg.

If Biden continues to slide in the polls, there is always the outside chance Hillary Clinton could join the race.

Few people in the US think this is likely, but Biden’s demise could tempt her to have a second shot at President Donald Trump.

After a quiet three years since she lost to Trump in 2016, Clinton has suddenly become more active on Twitter and been seen in public more often.

Dick Morris, former adviser to president Bill Clinton, said last week of Hillary: “She feels entitled to do it. She feels compelled to do it. She feels that God put her on the Earth to do it. But she’s hesitant because she realises the timing is bad.”

Biden’s problem is not so much what he says but how he says it. His campaigning style is too often pedestrian rather than inspiring.

His central campaign message is that he is the anti-Trump who will restore civility to politics and revive US leadership on the global stage.

In many ways, including in healthcare, Biden is proposing a modest extension of Barack Obama’s policies.

But voters are inspired by visions of change and of hope. Much of Biden’s agenda promises to turn the clock back to a world before Trump.

The media loves to focus on Biden’s verbal gaffes. “How many unsafe bridges do you still have here in Ohio? — I mean Iowa,” he said this week.

He often gets his location wrong, is accused of conflating stories and misspeaks about dates and events. “I am a gaffe machine, but my god what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can’t tell the truth,” he says, comparing himself with Trump.

Yet the gaffes often get linked to questions about whether, at 78 years of age on Inauguration Day in 2021, Biden is too old for the top job.

His campaign is also dogged by the impeachment inquiry that — although aimed at Trump — involves questions about the activities of Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine.

Although no wrongdoing has emerged, it is a reminder to voters of Hunter Biden’s efforts to cash in on his father’s name by taking a position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma and the fact the elder Biden allowed this.