"What brought Clinton down was public exposure not to her personality... but extended public scrutiny of every detail of a decades-long career in public life."

"This, in turn, is the exact same problem Biden will inevitably face as a presidential candidate.... And by 2020, there’s simply no reason to do that again. Most of the party’s bench consists of people like Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker, who are young enough not to have participated in the [Iraq] war debate in Congress.... Foreign policy experience theoretically should be a big Biden advantage over his rivals. But in reality, on one of the only foreign policy controversies voters actually paid attention to or remember, Biden got it wrong in a big way.... Old, mostly funny articles like '9 Times Joe Biden Creepily Whispered in Women’s Ears' will get fresh rereads for the #MeToo era, especially because Biden himself can’t seem to decide what he thinks about his handling of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings — alternately apologizing for having mishandled things and griping that it’s unfair for Anita Hill to blame him.... The entire spectacle of once again re-fighting every intraparty battle from the past two generations of Democratic Party politics would be bad for almost everyone at a time when Democrats should be talking about their ideas for the future rather than raking over the past."

Writes Matthew Yglesias in "Americans want outsiders, reformers, and fresh faces, not politicians with decades of baggage" (Vox).