We are going to hear a huge amount of nonsense about “working-class Joe” and his appeal to working-class, white swing voters. That isn’t Biden’s advantage over Clinton and Clinton’s other Democratic challengers.

Working-class, white swing voters aren’t going to be the ones who come out to vote in the 2016 Democratic nominating contests, and, to the extent they do vote in those races, those voters seem reasonably well-disposed toward Clinton. Bernie Sanders has revealed an intense dislike of Hillary Clinton by upper-middle-class , white liberals. This constituency has plenty of money, free time, and hate, so they can make a great deal of noise, but, by themselves, there are not enough upper-middle-class white liberals to deliver the Democratic presidential nomination to anybody.

In order for a challenger to seriously threaten Clinton, they would have to become the candidate of white, upper-middle-class liberals while making large inroads among African Americans. As the Netroots Nation fiasco proved, that isn’t going to be easy for a mostly unknown presidential candidate with few links to the Obama administration.

Biden’s advantage is that he can position himself as a viable candidate to both white, upper-middle-class white liberals and to African American Democrats. To affluent white liberals, Biden can be the politically prudent, progressive alternative to Sanders. Sanders is fun and all, but everyone (including Sanders) knows that Bernie is not going to be president. Biden’s pitch could be that affluent white liberals could date Bernie, but should marry Joe. Biden can also position himself as the legitimate heir to the Obama administration. That, by itself, won’t win Biden the African American vote, but it is an advantage that any other Clinton challenger lacks. Biden candidacy allows upper- middle-class liberal whites to vote against Clinton’s obvious phoniness, and lets African American Democrats vote against Clinton without feeling like they are somehow voting against Obama.