Here's Biden's big advantage over Hillary

With the first Democratic presidential campaign slated for Oct. 13 , Vice President Joseph Biden has just about run out of time before deciding whether to enter the race at the last minute and challenge Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the 2016 nomination.

By now, the 72-year old vice president’s dilemma over whether to make a third and final bid for the presidency has been well vetted: He’s still grieving over the tragic death of his son, Beau, and questions whether he would have sufficient fire in his belly to drag his family through another long and difficult campaign.

While there are plenty of advisers and supporters waiting in the wings for a positive signal from Biden, he doesn’t minimize the challenge of raising big money and organizing a sophisticated national campaign organization to take on Clinton’s gold-plated campaign organization.

And while few would challenge the vice president’s domestic and foreign policy chops, he would be cast in the role of having to defend virtually every Obama administration policy, even while Clinton – the former Obama administration Secretary of State – has been gradually distancing herself from the president’s unpopular policies in Syria and Iraq.

Yet with Clinton’s campaign steadily losing altitude because of the controversy of her mishandling of her email while at the State Department and widespread voter distrust of her veracity, Biden would hold a trump card heading into the race: a compelling argument that with years of experience and political knowhow, he would be a far more effective candidate in the general election than Clinton or Sanders.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that while Clinton retains a lead in the Democratic race over Sanders and others, Biden would be a far more formidable candidate in the general election against any of the current GOP frontrunners.

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