Former US Vice President Joe Biden dropping his name into the 2020 presidential race is going to be a bad move, especially considering his campaign is intended to prevent the Democratic Party from shifting farther left on the political spectrum, Ted Rall, an award-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist, told Sputnik.

"I have no idea why he's getting into the race in this late date and it's particularly baffling considering the… #MeToo-related accusations that seemed, I think, to be deadly to his chances in a Democratic Party that is completely obsessed with identity politics these days," Rall told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear on Friday.

"I don't know what he's thinking… this is definitely not a decision that I anticipated."

© AP Photo / Matt Rourke 'I'm a Hugger, I'm a Kisser': SNL Mocks Biden's Alleged 'Extra Touching' Earlier this month, several women came forward, recalling instances in which Biden touched them in a manner that made them feel uncomfortable. Many of them painted the picture of a handsy politician who completely disregarded changing societal norms about personal space.

Biden eventually responded to various allegations that he invaded women's spaces, saying that he knows "social norms are changing," and that moving forward, he would "be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future."

Rall told hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou that "this seems to me like a race that I would not have recommended if I were advising him."

"This is a disastrous decision," he said. "We're going to get the same result as we saw in 2016, where the progressives are going to be disgusted, they're going to feel like the fix is in, and a lot of them, if Biden does somehow end up being the nominee, millions of them are going to sit on their hands… because they're going to see two elections in a row where the [Democratic National Committee] put its thumb on the scales."

"This is a rehash of 2016 where they're scared of the Bernie Sanders insurgency, the Bernie Sanders-inspired insurgency, and they're trying to prevent the party from moving to the left, and they're just trying to go to the center-right corporatist model," Rall added.

"The leaders of the Democratic Party, the DNC types… would rather lose with a corporatist than win with a progressive. It shows you what this party is really about. The Democratic Party is not the party of the people… it's not interested in trying to move the needle for working people or to improve the lives of ordinary Americans or much less try to address the glaring problems of income and inequality, climate change and so on."

Biden is expected to formally announce his candidacy for president in the coming week. According to the Atlantic, the announcement is expected to come on Wednesday in a video that will feature shots filmed outside of the house in which he grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.