I think J's point was that he wasn't the choice of the party elites the way Hillary was. Which is true. They ended up not really choosing anyone, though I'm not at all sure that even the full weight of the GOP establishment behind Rubio from the start would have been able to vanquish Trump. The GOP is probably too fractured.
That was supposed to be plan A, but the establishment, Rubio, and The FOX mucked it up. The establishment, by putting splitting the loyalty with Jeb!, and then allowing too much pressure on Rubio to cave on immigration... which was supposed to be their golden ticket to the Hispanic vote. Rubio, by caving on immigration... once he did that, he was basically an empty suit/ empty vessel, which then created fertile ground for the damning Rubio-bot critique that Christie landed in such epic fashion. Finally, FOX hobbled the Rubio anointment, by tying the debate seeding to national poll rankings, basically ensuring Trump, as the most well known, would be a permanent fixture front and center.
The real question is whether Rubio recovers to fight another day.
Until this line I thought your post was agreeing with me, by pointing out that it was Clinton personally who was the problem, not any sort of strategy, and that someone exactly like Clinton but without the baggage would've been perfectly fine. It doesn't follow logically from the argument you've presented that Biden would fare the same as Clinton.
I am agreeing with you. I just think your argument supports my totally unscientific gut-instinct that establishment oldies = death for the Democrats.
People don't just despise Hillary because she has an annoying voice. People despise her
because she's an Avatar of the establishment. Joe Biden is more personable, but he has the same problem. So yes Hillary was personally a bad choice for the candidate. Like metalhead said, people were already dead-set against her. But I think it was in part that they were against
the idea of another typical establishment candidate. In fact, one of the more common refrains I heard from the colleague I mentioned was quote "Ugh, she's just the same old same-old, I can't stand her."
I think that those factors are linked.... the personal dislike
and the establishment dislike.