Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a Democratic presidential primary debate Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

The conventional wisdom that has been widely held among the conservative commentariat since 2016 is that no one could be a worse candidate than Hillary Clinton. This usually comes in the form of insisting that Trump must “be better” to win in 2020 because the working assumption is that the 2020 Democrat candidate will be better.

I noticed this dynamic during an exchange earlier today.

Hillary Clinton is the Armor-all of politics: all dents are covered by her failures. She isn't running this time. — Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) January 29, 2020

You know, while I normally agree with Ben, I’m not so sure that this premise of Hillary being uniquely awful is correct anymore, and Joe Biden is doing his best to bolster my thoughts on the matter.

Take this latest example, where he was caught on camera berating and physically accosting an Iowa voter and telling him to go vote for someone else.

Unclear if Biden understands how campaigning and elections work… https://t.co/2uPLtLzX22 — Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) January 28, 2020

First, what’s up with Biden and in-person confrontations? He has a habit of always putting his hands on the other person. That’s going to get him punched at some point. You never know how a person will react to having a finger jammed in their chest or their shoulder grabbed.

But more noteworthy is just how bad Biden is at this. He comes across as a defensive, stammering old man (perhaps because he is one) who has no answer to even the most mundane questions asked of him. Campaigning means telling voters how you’ll make yourself accountable to your promises. Instead of just acknowledging the man’s concerns, he accuses the guy of being a Bernie voter and tells him to vote for someone else.

Biden wasn’t done showing he’s an awful candidate though. He then went on to pronounce that he needs to pick the right Vice President because he might die in office.

Yes, this is a thing that really happened.

.@JoeBiden: "Whomever I pick” for VP, must “be capable of being president, because I’m an old guy — no I’m serious!” pic.twitter.com/WGnGkNnghI — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 29, 2020

While there may be some things Trump can do to help bolster himself for 2020, the idea that any of these Democrat candidates ever truly enjoyed a major advantage is a farce. There’s a reason the polls have greatly tightened, with Trump leading or within striking distance nationally now. It’s because the campaign was always going to progress past the fluff CNN interviews and adoring early debates.

Now, people are starting to see Joe Biden for who he really is, and there’s a very solid argument that by the time November rolls around, he’ll be no “better” of a candidate than Hillary was. And that’s if he’s even the nominee at this point.

Front-page contributor for RedState. Visit my archives for more of my latest articles and help out by following me on Twitter @bonchieredstate. Read more by Bonchie