As Joe Biden plans to travel to Iowa next week, the question arises: is this guy seriously planning to run for president?  Doesn’t he realize that he is a national laughingstock?

Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines Register reports:

Joe Biden, the vice president and an underdog for the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, is scheduled to be back in Iowa next week.

Biden will speak in Des Moines on Thursday, sources familiar with preparations for his trip told The Des Moines Register. His office later confirmed that he will deliver remarks at Drake University and do a roundtable at Des Moines Area Community College on college affordability.

This is exactly what prospective presidential candidates do.  But the Register notes that the latest Iowa poll shows Biden trails both Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, who has stated that she isn’t running.  However, despite his buffoon status among the general public, Democrats like him:

Among Democratic activists, opinions of him are high, the new Iowa Poll shows. He's viewed favorably by 78 percent of likely 2016 Democratic caucusgoers, the Jan. 26-29 poll found. Just 20 percent have a negative view of him.

That means his popularity among those core Democratic voters is almost as high as Clinton's (84 percent favorable). But he's the first choice of just 9 percent of likely caucusgoers, while Clinton is the top choice for 56 percent. Warren, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, is the first choice for 16 percent.

Biden may be keeping his iron in the fire, in case Hillary decides that she doesn’t want to run, after all.  But if that were to happen, I suspect that Elizabeth Warren would put on her war bonnet and hop on her pony to enter the race.  It would be no contest; she'd scalp him.  Senator Warren is the kind of candidate who gives Democrats a thrill up the leg and, beyond claiming Native American heritage for career advantage, is not known for gaffes.

But there may be something else at work: a desire to do a service to the party and offer token opposition to Hillary, so as to enable her to engage in debates and get a lot of free air time, without ever laying a glove in her.  She, after all, has been out of the game, and her skills are rather rusty, as demonstrated by her gaffes when promoting her book.  Joe Biden, affable, handsome, seasoned, and likable, would be the perfect foil for a faux primary battle.

So there is a curious logic to the Biden candidacy, twisted, duplicitous, and covert though it may be.  All in all, a perfect logical corollary to his service to the nation under President Obama.