Which brings me to the much-debated potential candidacy of Biden this time around. I have a piece of advice for the former vice president:

Run, Joe, run.

Run because you have strengths that no other Democratic candidate does, including your depth of experience and connection to the Obama presidency. Run because your populist image fits the Democrats’ most successful political strategy of the past generation. Run because you will never have another chance — and because you are not afraid of losing.

I get the case against Biden. My colleague Frank Bruni has made it and made it well, as have Vox’s Matthew Yglesias and others. At 76 years old, Biden does not represent an exciting new era. He is an old white guy who, over the years, has tacked right on criminal justice, bungled the Anita Hill hearings and failed twice at presidential campaigning. If Biden runs now, I’m not sure whether I’ll be rooting for him to win.

But I am rooting for him to run because the country needs to maximize the chances that Trump’s presidency ends as soon as possible, certainly by Jan. 20, 2021. A Biden run helps that cause. It does so by broadening the Democrats’ options. It creates a stronger field, from which the strongest nominee can emerge. (The downsides of a big field are often exaggerated: A divisive primary didn’t undermine Barack Obama in 2008. It helped him.) If Biden is as flawed as his critics think, he won’t win the nomination.

Above all, a Biden run avoids repeating the mistake of 2016 — the hubris of imperfect foresight.

For the same reason, I am glad Warren is running. She combines progressive passion with serious policy chops. I’m rooting for Kamala Harris and Beto O’Rourke, who do seem fresh and exciting, to run. I hope Sherrod Brown and Amy Klobuchar, two populist Midwesterners, run. I hope the uncommonly charismatic Mitch Landrieu does, too. This group, with Biden, is my A-list. And I wouldn’t be shocked to see another candidate do well enough to jump into the A-list.

Yet Biden is unique among all of them. For starters, he would bring strengths to the actual job of president that the others would not. He has an intimate sense of the modern presidency. He has spent decades — literally, as he likes to say — doing battle with a radicalized Republican Party.