Biden Can't Defeat Clinton--She Can Do That Herself

One troubling snapshot from a new Wall St. Journal-NBC poll: More women now view Clinton negatively than positively.

Biden has a quality of genuineness, of humanity, that seems to elude the public Clinton. My most enduring -- and endearing -- vision of Biden is seeing the grinning vice president at the annual summer party for the media, chasing a group of children with a Super Soaker water gun, and allowing himself to be thoroughly drenched by the tiny mob. Biden is the ultimate extrovert.

Clinton, by contrast, is self-contained and guarded, if not by nature then after years of public pounding. One person who knows her well told me that the key to understanding Clinton was to read Susan Cain's book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking." One of Cain's examples is Eleanor Roosevelt, a heroine of Clinton's and, like Clinton, married to the ultimate extrovert.

Clinton's close friend, the late Diane Blair, captured much the same assessment from Clinton herself after a Thanksgiving 1996 phone call. "What she really enjoys is policy," Blair wrote in a memo of their conversation. "Doesn't enjoy advocacy. 'I'd be happy in a little office somewhere thinking up policies, making things happen, refining them.'" The weeds are Clinton's natural habitat.

Being an introvert is not by any means fatal to political success, and Clinton has the capacity to charm, in the right setting. Watch Clinton's relaxed "Chair Chats," released Monday, with South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison. Sitting in a rocking chair, Clinton comes off as warm and accessible as she describes baby-sitting for granddaughter Charlotte and binge-watching HGTV. This is a woman who knows her "Love It or List It."

Compare this charming Clinton to the self-righteous, prickly one who gave her first, and so far only, national television interview to CNN's Brianna Keilar. Clinton dismissed concerns about her trustworthiness as unsubstantiated partisanship, the sort of thing that happens "when you are subjected to the kind of constant barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the right." Voters with reasonable worries don't appreciate being dismissed as dupes of political enemies.

Joe Biden isn't going to defeat Hillary Clinton. Not having Biden's strengths, and not figuring out how to develop and display them -- that could.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.