Our 72-year-old vice-president, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., is contemplating throwing his hat in the ring for the 2016 Democrat primary for president. Affable, gregarious, endearing, and a dangerously extemporaneous speaker, Biden has attempted to gain the nomination on two previous occasions. However, this moment in time might prove more fortuitous.

Currently, the Democrat aspirants consist of the self-proclaimed “independent socialist” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the ponderously self-possessed former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, the squishy flip-floppy former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, and the former Secretary of the Navy and Virginia Sen. Jim Webb. First, but not a shoe-in, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is the best-funded, most organized, presumptive nominee for her party’s nomination.

However, Clinton has a problem – she is conspicuously deceitful. Her penchant for prevarication might be old Joe’s open door to the mantle of his party.

In a campaign season thus far, in which the current Republican frontrunner is a multiple-time bankrupt real estate mogul with a bad hair weave, the Democrats have a solid chance at retaining the executive branch of government. Yet, the question remains, is Hillary Clinton the candidate to compete in the general election for the White House? Or should reliable, faithful, old Joe Biden become the standard bearer of Democrat traditions?

Joe Biden came from an almost destitute working-class background. Born in the Rust Belt of scrappy Scranton, Penn., Biden’s childhood was replete with hard times, inconsistent parental employment, and a concentration on academic achievement in order to create a ladder out of his meager surroundings. His story is a saleable American story that resonates with the general populous. Contrarily, Hillary Clinton’s story of a textile businessman’s daughter who attended privileged upper class schools is not a tale of overcoming the odds, but an anecdote of winnowing down the choices of many opportunities.

Biden’s close identification with those who struggle inundates his past speeches and town hall meetings and is conveyed genuinely. Whereas Hillary’s “I want to be your champion” rhetoric comes across as blatantly insincere.

Also, Biden’s two previous attempts for the nomination, once in 1988 and again in 2008, have taught him what not to do. In 1988, he co-opted parts of a European labor leader’s speech with little alteration and was called on it. This perhaps more than anything led to the demise of that campaign and cleared the way for then Massachusettes Gov. Michael Dukakis to gain the nomination. In 2008, he early on correctly perceived the Barack Obama juggernaut as unstoppable and dropped out. Even though he made an unfortunate off-the-cuff reference about the young senator from Illinois as “clean and articulate,” the future president chose Biden as his running mate. Any anxiousness between them is well in the rearview mirror as the president has recently said the following about Biden: “Joe has been as good a vice-president as I think we’ve seen in American history.”

Additionally, the closeness and respect the sitting president has for his vice-president was earnestly expressed at the funeral for Joe Biden’s son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden: “Joe Biden is my brother.”

Of course, the question is, will the president endorse Biden in a competitive primary season? If not, one would assume that should Biden gain the nomination regardless of a primary endorsement, Obama would be an active participant in a Biden campaign, undoubtedly displaying the Obama oratory magic that elected him twice.

Certainly, any “accomplishment” interpreted by Democrats that occurred during the Obama tenure would be transferred by association to the vice-president. Biden, for better or worse, was instrumental in the passage of the “Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010,” “The Budget Control Act of 2011,” and the “American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.” Also, he contributed somewhat in the passage of the “Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)” which is oxymoronic in name.

In addition to Hillary, the three other competitors for the nomination seem unlikely to wear the party’s crown. Far left liberal Bernie Sanders is bluntly honest about his socialist viewpoints. Even though he has galvanized those Democrats and independents disgusted with Washington, simultaneously, his consistency in honoring Chairman Mao and Karl Marx with speeches about the equalization of wealth will alienate the Democrat mainstream. For they know that electability in a general election is won in the moderate middle. Thus, conventional political wisdom theorizes that the most he could hope for is approximately 20 percent of Democrat primary voters. Also, Chafee is polling below 1 percent, further proving the quixotic nature of his dreamlike quest for recognition. Then there are O’ Malley and Webb. Neither rises above single digits in a number of polls. Both are receiving little press coverage and generating little momentum, and have little hope of being anything other than “also-rans.”

As a result, Democrats are looking at the vice-president as an alternative to the soiled frontrunner Clinton. Like her lecherous husband, she has a problem with the truth. She has been caught publicly in falsehoods in regard to the “Whitewater” real estate deal, being under sniper fire in the Balkans, statements regarding her husband’s dalliances while in the White House, accountings pertaining to the White House Travel Office firing scandal, comments about the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya, and most recently her series of canards meant to exculpate her recklessness in regard to her private email server in violation of common security protocol while she was secretary of state.

Consequently, she has been precipitously dropping in the polls despite millions upon millions being spent in political advertising. Her untrustworthiness in two major polls is rated over 60 percent. Thus, some party activists are searching elsewhere for a reliable candidate, like Biden. Even though he has tended to make unfortunate guffaws in the past, he is for the most part perceived as an earnest man.

At 72 years old, old Joe may no longer have the fire in his belly to chase the brass ring of the presidency. He has served the country from 1973 to 2009 as senator from the state of Delaware, and has served six and one half years in office thus far as the number-two man in the executive branch of government. Having just lost his well-loved son Beau, he is ruminating about another run. His surviving son Hunter has expressed his support of a run, although his wife Dr. Jill Biden is reportedly ambivalent. Biden expressed his quandary this way: “I’ve given this a lot of thought and dealing internally with the family on how we do this.”

With 17 mostly credible competitors on the other side of the aisle, the Democrats need someone irrefutable as a candidate that the electorate can trust. That candidate is not Hillary Clinton. Additionally, the Democrats need someone who can win from the moderate middle. That candidate is not Bernie Sanders.

Simply, the door is open for Joe Biden to finally capture the Democrat nomination for president. The question is, will he cross that threshold?