For months, the media have bent over backwards to convince us that 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, who plans on paying for a $32 trillion "Medicare For all" bill and $1.25 trillion college plan with an unconstitutional wealth tax accruing just $2.75 trillion, is a serious policy wonk.

In that same time, front-runner Joe Biden has wisely stuck to the sidelines as the crowded left-wing lane of the field careened further towards socialism. And now with the September debates threatening to winnow the field to fewer than ten candidates, and Biden's polling proving resilient despite racially charged attacks on his career, the media has finally noticed what the rest of us have known for half a century: the former vice president is a gaffe machine.

As a senator and to little media notice, Biden joked that "you cannot go to a 7-11" in Delaware "unless you have a slight Indian accent," and that then presidential hopeful Barack Obama was a "clean" and "mainstream African American." In 2010, Biden derided a Milwaukee custard shop manager as a "smartass" for teasing that he'd offer him a free dessert if the Obama administration cut taxes. Two years years later, Biden warned us racist-loving Romney supporters that limited government policies sought to put black Americans "back in chains."

Forced to face the campaign trail at the Iowa State Fair, the now septuagenarian is still churning out the gaffes, but shockingly, the media is finally pouncing. Or seizing. Or whatever word they usually reserve for conservatives when they call out bad behavior.

Here's the Biden quote from tonight. He was talking about international reaction to Trump's comments on the Charlottesville white supremacist rallies. He caught himself before fully saying "Thatcher," saying "excuse me," but didn't replace it with another name. pic.twitter.com/wqbFgITNiy — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 9, 2019

In Iowa, Joe Biden told a group of mostly Asian and Hispanic voters Wednesday that "poor kids are just as bright" as white childrenhttps://t.co/LFWwbax6uB — Emma Kinery (@EmmaKinery) August 9, 2019

Because Biden still has a D next to his name, he's still being chided with delicacy, but even the Today Show dedicated coverage to the sort of blusters ignored for the bulk of his career.

Democratic front-runner Joe Biden raised eyebrows on the campaign trail after what appeared to be a slip of the tongue during a speech in Iowa. @MitchellReports has the latest. pic.twitter.com/rJt3gPueEo — TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 9, 2019

That's right, old man. Your media betters and Beltway elite are ready for you to bow down and let a younger and more intersectional candidate to take the lead. But there are two problems that the Warren loving media ignore at their own peril.

For one thing, Biden's blunders are baked into the cake. Sure, confusing the only two female prime ministers of the United Kingdom may be a senior moment. But more than a decade ago Biden was still calling Obama "Barack America" and deeming "jobs" a "three letter word." The "very online" left will take any fodder for their axe to grind with Biden, but will Iowans and South Carolinians care that Uncle Joe put his foot in his mouth once more?

But more important is that Biden himself, for all his flaws, is continually proving that he's the only major candidate running a campaign for president of the United States and not comrade commander of the Revolutionary Socialist Committee to reelect Donald Trump.

With Warren and "Beta" O'Rourke declaring the president a white supremacist, reporters put Biden on blast in Iowa, demanding to know if the candidate who began by denouncing Trump's equivocation after the neo-Nazi Charlottesville march and deeming him an "aberration" would do the same.

Per the Daily Mail:



'Why are you so hooked on that?,' he responded to DailyMail.com during his visit to the Iowa State Fair.



'You just want me to say the words so I sound like everybody else. I'm not everybody else. I'm Joe Biden. I've always been who I am. I'm staying that way,' he added.

...



'He is encouraging white supremacy. You can determine what that means,' he said. 'I know it's like everybody wants everybody to call somebody a liar. I don't call people liars. I said they don't tell the truth. Okay? You want to hear me say liars so you can put out that Biden called someone a liar. That's not who I am. You got the wrong guy.'



While plenty have pointed out that on policy and technique, Biden's campaign largely resembles that of 2016 loser Hillary Clinton, Biden has made a pivotal and promising determination not to open the Pandora's Box of branding all of Trump's supporters as deplorables or impugning Trump's innermost motivations. He's not running to win the plaudits of Bushwick baristas or Santa Monica stylists. He's running to win back voters from Ohio Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin who gave Trump the White House in 2016, and the moderate suburban moms who gave Nancy Pelosi the House speakership in 2018.

As I have long maintained, Biden's simple case for his candidacy rests on his ability to prove he can beat Trump. Or, as Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight notes:

It's not that complicated, folks. Biden's gonna lose the nomination if and when Democrats become convinced that he can't beat Trump, or become convinced that someone else can. Otherwise he's likely to be pretty resilient. — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 9, 2019

Maybe the sort of gaffes that have cluttered Biden's entire political career may spell the death knell of his final act. But I'm willing to bet that half a century of his public presence has inoculated voters to rhetorical slip-ups. His wise refusal to alienate half the country says something meaningful about his chances of victory.