Maybe Joe took my advice.

I told a friend of the VP’s recently that he should not run for president in 2016 but instead should leave the political stage as an elder statesman.

No matter why Biden really decided to let Hillary Clinton have the Democrats’ presidential nomination without a fight, it’s great news for the GOP.

At least it should be.

In an ordinary election season, the GOP should be thrilled to pieces at the chance to duke it out with Hillary and the U-Haul load of dirty old political baggage she and her husband are always dragging around with them.

But this is no ordinary season. It’s the upside-down season of Donald Trump.

What Trump has done to hurt the GOP’s chances so far is enough to make a conspiratorialist think Hillary and Bill paid him to run as a Republican.

But I forgot. Trump is so rich no one has enough loot to buy him off, not even Bill and Hillary.

What Trump is doing to the GOP continues to amaze me.

It’s bad enough he has infected what’s left of the party’s conservative brand with his Democrat-lite ideas.

But one-by-one he’s been biting his fellow Republicans like a liberal attack dog — even ones he’s not running against.

As part of his nonstop bullying of Jeb Bush, Trump tried to make it seem Jeb’s big brother George W. was somehow responsible for the 9/11 attack on America.

It was a cheap shot that knocked Jeb off his message — a message no one is hearing anyway — and forced him to defend his brother.

Democrats have been unfairly blaming George W. for 9/11 — and everything else that’s gone wrong in the world — for eight years. So now Trump piles on?

GW could have done nothing to stop the attack, which occurred just nine months after he replaced Bill Clinton in the White House.

People like Trump forget that in 2001 the U.S. Senate wouldn’t allow GW to appoint a new CIA director or appoint other people he needed who could have given him better intelligence information.

On top of Trump’s stupid 9-11 statement, Dr. Ben Carson came out with an even dumber one.

The GOP’s Mister Rogers candidate said he would have brought Osama Bin Laden to justice in two weeks without going to war in Afghanistan.

He said he simply would have told the Saudis we were going to become oil independent.

That threat to their bottom line, he said, would have caused the Saudi’s to rush out and capture Osama and turn him over to us.

These are the two top-tier Republican people trying to become President of the U.S.?

Trump and Carson may say things in the primary that some want to hear.

But the most important question is, “Can they actually do what you want them to do if they win?”

To be a successful president, even a conservative one, in the real world you have to work with members of Congress, not call them names. Trump will never be able to work with anyone in Congress — on either side.

The GOP desperately needs to save itself from being Trumped.

With Hillary and her heavy baggage as the competition, Republicans and conservatives have been handed a great chance to win in 2016.

But they also have a great chance to absolutely blow winning 2016 if they don’t stop Trump, who could cinch the nomination as early as next March on Super Tuesday.

Despite its dysfunction, the GOP still has time to derail the Trump Express. It has a deep bench of conservative politicians and leaders from around the country.

But if they’re going to beat Hillary and prevent the GOP from becoming the next Whig Party, Republicans have to unite behind someone like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich or Chris Christie.

They have to choose wisely — and they better do it fast.

Copyright ©2015 Michael Reagan