Washington • It will be good for the country and the Democratic Party for Joe Biden to run for president. But it could be hell on him.
If Biden backed off from running, he would be cast as a martyr to "political correctness" and "the new multiculturalism" by many of the same conservatives who would do everything they could to defeat him if he won the nomination. Faux sympathy of this sort is starting to appear on the right. It's designed precisely to undercut further advances toward gender and racial equality.
Moreover, as a noncandidate, Biden would hang over the rest of the field like an absent giant who makes everyone else look small.