It’s deja vu all over again.

Remember how, in the summer of 2016, Hillary Clinton’s popularity seemed to soar as long as she remained hidden? When she ventured out in public - usually flanked by a flock of aides lest the public see her unsteady gait - she tended to alarm her base.

There were those worrisome coughing fits. The staggering. Her snotty dismissal of those who supported her opponent as “deplorables.”

Still, Hillary stayed comfortably ahead in the polls until Election Night when the country nearly drowned in liberal tears.

Now comes Joe Biden. The cream of the crop of more than a dozen Democrats who sought the presidency.

In the beginning there were jokes about Joe’s “gaffes.” 

No one’s calling them gaffes anymore. Biden is showing sad signs of dementia. He can barely string a sentence together and he’s been hiding in his basement for months.

Yet his poll numbers are strong.

Let’s be honest. The Coivid-19 pandemic has been a blessing for Biden. It’s given his handlers an excuse to keep him inside and under wraps. Because of the virus there are no crowd-size comparisons between Trump’s mega rallies and Biden’s, which could barely fill a bakery.

Biden does best when no one sees him. But the former veep can’t hunker down until Election Day. 

Or can he?

Just wait for the debates, Trump supporters say, giddy with anticipation. 

No one in Biden’s camp is looking forward to putting him on stage with Donald Trump. They know there aren’t enough amphetamines and ear pieces in the world to level that playing field. 

The first sign that the debates were in trouble came last month when The University of Michigan cancelled the second presidential debate due to fears of the coronavirus. That duel has since been moved to Utah.

At this writing there are three scheduled debates, with the second being a town hall format: Sept. 29 at Notre Dame, Oct 7 at the University of Utah and Oct. 22 at Belmont University in Nashville.

It’s clear influential Democrats would prefer Biden skip them.

The New York Post reported in June that former Gov. Terry McAuliffe was happy with Biden’s cellar-dweller strategy.

“Terry McAuliffe, prominent Democrat and Joe Biden supporter, told a meeting of Virginia Democrats that the former vice president should remain in his Delaware home’s basement for the duration of the 2020 presidential campaign, according to a report on Wednesday.

McAuliffe, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman in 2016, spoke via Zoom to a videoconference of the Norfolk City Democratic Committee.

“People say all the time, ‘Oh, we got to get the vice president out of the basement,'” McAuliffe told the “monthly breakfast,” Fox News reported, citing a copy of the video it obtained. “He’s fine in the basement. Two people see him a day: his two body people. That’s it. Let Trump keep doing what Trump’s doing.”

Politico also published a piece last month quoting several Democratic operatives happy with the missing candidate.

“I appreciate that Biden has expanded his base. I think it’s mainly because he has played it safe,” said Yasmine Taeb, a Democratic National Committee member from Virginia. “He’s made some public statements in the wake of the protests, but for the most part he’s also taken advantage of the pandemic and he’s laid low.”

Earlier this week, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman gave Biden some advice:

Don’t debate.

“I worry about Joe Biden debating Donald Trump,” Friedman began.

He then advised Biden to refuse to go onstage unless Trump agrees to impossible conditions: that he release his tax returns and agree to a panel of real-time fact checkers at the debate. (Trump’s tax returns should be the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court decision today or tomorrow, which could render this point moot.)

The last thing Democrats want is for voters to get a good look at the man their party is running for president. The debates are dangerous for Joe Biden. Will they happen?

Don’t count on it.