Body-Puncher

My friend, Jim, who was a waiter at Harry's Corner on the Wildwood Boardwalk, had previously run a roller skating rink on the Delaware side of the Pennsy border until it closed up. He said Joe Biden came there a lot with his family.

“He came in after the election,” Jim said, “and when I called him 'Mr. Vice President,' he said, 'No. The name is still Joe.'”

Jim didn't say whether Biden hugged him or not, but he probably did; that's his way and part of his nature.

That's what Trump is afraid of: Biden's nature. He's already said he'd like to take Trump out behind the school house and kick his ass. The rest of the current bumper crop of Democratic Presidential candidates seem more interested in the nuts and bolts of policies and platforms, which is probably as it should be because this is the first time in a Presidential Primary campaign for all of them. None of them are going after Trump in a single-minded, aggressive way.

This isn't Joe Biden's first rodeo, though, not after forty years in the business. He already has the bona fides that the others are busily establishing, which leaves him the elbow room to go toe-to-toe and body-punch with Trump, to show the country that the fat bastard can't take a sustained attack in his jelly belly. 

In Scranton, they'd eat Trump, a spoiled oaf from Queens, for an appetizer. And Joe Biden is from Scranton originally. Can you picture a debate and Trump hovering over Biden like he did to Hillary Clinton? It might be the first septuagenarian cold-cocking in Presidential debate history. Any debate between Biden and Trump would, of course, be a battle of wits, and guess who would be shown to be unarmed? Biden has forgotten more about this country's government and its workings, both at home and abroad, than Trump could ever begin to conceive of, if he had the brain voltage, which he obviously doesn't. Or if he wasn't the laziest-minded chief executive in the history of chief executives. (God, I hate the term even lightly applied to Trump.)

Notice how Trump hasn't hung a nickname on Nancy Pelosi. She would body-punch him down Pennsylvania Avenue. He calls Biden “Sleepy Joe” right now. That will probably change because it is a stupid name to begin with. Anybody who has seen Biden on the stump knows he's far from “sleepy.” Trump, of course, meant that Biden is stupid, but anyone can see from the King's English that he speaks compared to Trump's sixth-grade churning, who is stupid.

Okay. Biden is old. So is Trump. Biden is also an old political warrior while Trump is at best an old grifter. Age doesn't mean what it used to – unless you glug down 12 Diet Cokes a day. A tough body-punching race might put Trump in Johns Hopkins. And it might enervate Joe Biden for all the undecided voters to see.

But, yes, Joe Biden is old; at 78 he'd be the oldest president in history. That's why he should have a strong woman as a running mate, which shouldn't be a problem. The two of them could kick Trump's overstuffed ass all the way back to Queens.