Can you win the Democratic nomination having voted for NAFTA, the Iraq War, and the Bankruptcy Bill

...Joe Biden is asking himself the wrong question.

He's focused solely on a general election campaign against Trump as he ponders the Democratic field of potential candidates, but the former Vice-President is not necessarily a cinch to win the Democratic nomination. He's failed spectacularly in the past, and he's politically positioned apart from most potential Democratic contenders by a rather long history of center-left votes like support for the Iraq war, support for NAFTA, voting for the bankruptcy bill.

To be fair, he also has a long history of support for solidly progressive legislation and initiatives, like his authorship of the Violence Against Women Act, but there's a lot of centrism in his record.

I found this NBC tidbit from the one major Democratic candidate who went ahead and leapt into into the 2020 presidential pool without playing Cuomo at the airport, Elizabeth Warren:

In a November 2007 post titled "Presidential Leadership," she shared a Barack Obama campaign video on health care featuring an interview with her. Still, Warren did not endorse anyone during the Democratic primary, and was lobbying candidates behind the scenes to create what would become the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

But well before the 2008 race began, Warren had harsh words for Biden, one of its eventual contenders who has said he is still deciding whether to run in 2020. In March of 2006, Warren wrote that Biden's 2005 vote in favor of the bankruptcy bill that spurred her foray into blogging made him part of "a bi-partisan coalition to prefer powerful corporation [sic] over hard-working families."

"For years, Senator Joe Biden vied with Republican Senators Charles Grassley and Oren Hatch for head cheerleader for this bill," Warren wrote. “Even as he tried to position his national image as a strong supporter of women, Senator Biden was twisting arms to get the bankruptcy bill through Congress.”

There's a deliberate blind spot to Biden's self-serving entreaty to run. “If you can persuade me there is somebody better who can win, I’m happy not to do it, he says.” Can you imagine the reaction to any other potential candidate uttering those words? Imagine Hillary saying this?

Don't get me wrong, I think he should run, but he's making a big assumption that his perception of himself as the best dragonslayer on the horizon is going to survive a progressive-themed Democratic primary. If he does run we'll find out if his personal political experience is what Democratic voters actually favor.