In 2020, Biden experience could turn out to be baggage

Joe Biden entered the 2020 race for president Thursday at the top of the polls, with universal name recognition and the still-fresh sheen of his time as a popular vice president to Barack Obama.

In a video posted to his social media platforms, Biden characterized the race as a “battle for the soul of this nation.”

“If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation — who we are — and I cannot stand by and watch that happen,” he says in the 3½-minute video.

Biden will travel to Pittsburgh on Monday to deliver a speech about the middle class, then to Iowa the next day. He will travel through several early voting states for the next two weeks before returning to Pennsylvania to make a speech about “unifying America” in Philadelphia on May 18.

Biden brings 40 years of political baggage that could force him to explain or apologize for dozens of past positions that are out of step with a Democratic Party that is being pulled further left.How Biden chooses to frame a Washington record that stretches back to the Nixon administration could determine the course of his candidacy.