Instead, this promises to be a race above all about character and personal qualities. It will be waged by old men—age 73 for the incumbent, age 77 for the presumptive challenger—whose essential worldviews were formed decades ago and whose essential instincts and preoccupations are backward-looking.

The main idea of Biden’s campaign is, in the phrase that had its origins in a malapropism by Warren G. Harding, a return to normalcy. He has the usual roster of standard Democratic policy positions but they are not animated by an arresting new vision, like Barack Obama’s “hope and change” message of 2008. Instead, Biden’s promise is mostly about the restoration of civility and precedent.

The main idea of Trump’s campaign is by all evidence the continuation of non-normalcy. Disruption was his promise in 2016, and what he has delivered for three years. Increasingly, though, that disruption is less about specific policy goals—never mind larger ideas—than it is about Trump’s own cult of personality, with its titanic gyrations of whimsy and grievance.

Here’s one to be answered by Trump supporters: If he wins a second term, his most important policy goal will be: What?

Here’s one to be answered by any voter. The State of the Union address, when presidents seeking re-election historically lay out a second-term agenda, was just last month. Yes, you probably remember a carnival-like atmosphere, during which Rush Limbaugh was bestowed the Medal of Freedom and Nancy Pelosi ripped up her copy of the speech. Do you remember Trump’s main new policy initiative or any big promises he intends to make the basis of his re-election?

As a political culture, we are now so immersed in the nonstop news cycle with its premium on insult, indignation, and living in the moment that we scarcely notice when an election that is momentous by any measure winds up with a choice like this one. 2020 will have one candidate who is all about Trump, another who is all about being the opposite of Trump, but no candidate who has defined himself by a new set of arguments about the future, or a new set of remedies about the problems likely to shadow the country or the world in the years ahead.

Bill Clinton, whose 1990s-era policies are largely out of fashion and whose personal lapses are now judged censoriously by Democrats who were once more forgiving, perhaps still might get some credit for knowing something about presidential politics. One of his signature maxims is, Every election is about the future.

Hmm….It would be interesting to get Clinton’s unfiltered analysis of this one. His theme was the Fleetwood Mac song, “Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow).” Biden and Trump, by contrast, sometimes seem to be urging, “Don’t Stop Thinking About Yesterday.”

Biden began his campaign with what turned out to be a blunder, referring to the Senate that he served in after winning shortly before his 30^th birthday in 1972, when he said he managed to work productively even with that era’s segregationists whose views he found repugnant. Though he has dropped fond references to Dixiecrats, he still cites his own history crafting deals in the Senate, and, on a more personal note, his own perseverance through tragedy after the 1972 deaths of his first wife and daughter and the 2015 death of his son, Beau Biden.

Trump, likewise, filters contemporary issues through a personal prism that is decades old. His warnings about the rise of China flow rhetorically directly from his 1980s warnings about what was then seen as the implacable rise of Japan. His descriptions of negotiations with leaders in Congress to other heads of state often use language that sound like the advice he gave in his 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal,” published when he was 42. One of his major first-term policy victories was fulfilling a pledge to replace Clinton’s NAFTA trade deal, passed more than a quarter-century ago.

Even as the world changes dramatically, by all evidence what Democratic voters seem to want this year—no less than Republican Trump diehards – is a contest over character and personal traits.

Democrats this year already rejected the candidate of generational change, 38-year-old former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who said his youth gave him personal connection with the imperative of addressing climate change that older candidates lacked. They also rejected the candidate of detailed plans, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, just as they earlier rejected candidates like Sen. Kamala Harris who made appeals to racial or gender identity. Now, they are on the path to rejecting Sanders, perhaps the most overtly ideological presidential candidate in decades.

Biden’s victory speech Tuesday night underscored his campaign’s theme of restoration. His tone was solemn and understated, as he explained the event from a planned rally in Ohio due to concerns about coronavirus to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He noted how former rivals like Buttigieg, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar have endorsed him, and indicated he hopes in due course to win the same from Sanders. He praised Sanders and his supporter for “their tireless energy and their passion.”

Sanders didn't win any of the first states to report — by Wednesday morning EST it was still unclear what would happen in Washington state — but did demonstrate a sizable base of support. The problem is it looks increasingly hard for him to win a majority or plurality of delegates, and he is already on record as saying whoever arrives at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee with the highest number of delegates should be the nominee. That seems likely to be Biden.

Noting recent predictions of his own electoral demise, the former vice president said his candidacy represents not just the comeback of a political campaign but “a comeback for the soul of this nation.”

“This election is one that has character on the ballot,” Biden declared. “The character of the candidates, the character of the nation, is on the ballot.”