“He hasn’t directly called me or anything, but no,” Tlaib told Newsweek magazine about backing Biden for president. “Right now I’m focused on my election, my constituents and my residents. Residents come up to me and say, ‘Rashida, I don’t know. I hear Joe Biden this, Joe Biden that’…If the ultimate goal is to get rid of Donald Trump, that doesn’t have to involve me actually endorsing Biden. My constituents don’t need to be bogged down in, ‘Is he the best candidate?’ That’s not what you have to convince my residents.”

Wow. That is classic weasely politician in trouble befuddled footwork. She tries to say everything, actually says nothing, and hopes nobody notices. She’s caught between her own radical well-wishers, who loathe Biden for being too moderate by their standards, and the majority of her district (black voters) who accept Biden as their presumptive presidential nominee.

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One of those black voters is Tlaib’s nemesis and smart money to be the victor in next week’s primary election. Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones says this about our loud and obnoxious pal Rashida: “You can be vocal, but the things that were being done — like calling the president a ‘MF’ or booing Hillary — every time something like that happened, I was getting calls from people saying ‘You’re more professional than this. I’m not interested in being a rock star. I’m just interested in bringing home the money, working for the people of the 13th district and uniting the community.”

But Nancy Pelosi, true to her turf-protecting instincts in the event of a Biden win, is sticking with Tlaib. Because if Tlaib can pull off the primary win, she’ll owe Nancy bigtime, not Joe.

The main factor in Tlaib’s race is, well, race. The district is predominantly black and, Tlaib aside, has been a black U.S. House seat for generations. And it’s no surprise to anyone that voters have ethnic and racial loyalties. Perhaps if Tlaib had been less of a show-horse and concentrated on constituent service. But while she was frothing against the president and even booing Hillary Clinton (credit for that one Rashida), Jones, as the president of a city council, was likely dealing with voters and the community on a very one-on-one retail basis.

So if Detroit and the nation are lucky next week, we will trade a screeching lunatic in for a garden variety liberal. There are worse things that can happen.