Quick: if you hear the name “Joe Biden,” what places spring to mind? Delaware, for obvious reasons. Scranton, probably, along with the requisite dose of earthy Irish-American wisdom. But Boston should, too. The president elect didn’t grow up in this area, but some of Boston’s top political power brokers helped shape and guide his career — which was also defined, for years, by an embarrassing presidential setback inflicted by the campaign of one Mike Dukakis back in 1987.

In this episode of the Scrum, Adam Reilly talks through Biden’s #bospoli and #mapoli connections with Boston Globe op-ed columnist Scot Lehigh. First, though, Peter Kadzis sizes up Biden’s performance during one of the most bizarre political transitions in American history — and what the coming months have in store for a deeply conflicted Democratic Party.