Realize: Joe Biden is not running a serious primary campaign. Incumbent presidents rarely do, and when then do it’s an ominous sign for their party overall. (See: Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush.) Neither Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nor Marianne Williamson is a serious candidate who poses a credible threat, however much one of them may embarrass him in New Hampshire. And yet Biden is making these defensive moves anyway. Which would suggest that something else is going on, that there is a different underlying motive altogether.

Of course, I think I know the reason why. I said as much back in May when the issue first came up: Biden can’t do retail campaigning anymore, and New Hampshire at least requires a few in-person appearances, even for a president running unopposed. Everyone knows he’s not up to the task; everyone can see his public appearances of late (he seemed to be decaying before our eyes as he mumbled his way through the statement last Friday about the Supreme Court’s rulings), and the priority is to keep Biden’s potential “exposure” in that sense to the barest minimum until his hand will be forced at least somewhat by the general election. New Hampshire can be treated as a write-off, a mess based on quirky laws and an uncooperative Republican legislature. In reality, it’s a delaying tactic.