Joe Biden's presidential campaign is dead, but he doesn't realize it yet.  His growing list of incidents of mental lapses demonstrate that he is well past his sell-by date.  Yesterday, his wife Jill delivered what ought to be the deathblow.

Mrs. Biden, constantly identified by the MSM as "Dr. Jill Biden" owing to her doctorate in education (a far cry from the implied medical degree), inadvertently acknowledged the problems that trouble all who are paying close attention.  Watch this cringe-worthy appeal for support that she delivered yesterday in New Hampshire:

Dr. Jill Biden urges voters to consider her husband's electability, saying: "your candidate might be better on, I don’t know, healthcare than Joe is, but you’ve got to look at who’s going to win this election." pic.twitter.com/xdPk95wWnv

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 19, 2019

The argument that you may have to "swallow a bit" to support him must be the weakest spousal endorsement in presidential campaign history.  What’s next?  "He’s not that addled"?

Twitter video screen grab.

Biden's campaign trail mental lapses are no longer "gaffes" as we understand the term.  They demonstrate a tenuous grasp of what is real and what is fantasy.  Michael Tracey:

... surely no one can seriously contend at this point that Biden's constant malfunctions are simply innocuous slips of the tongue which belie a mind that is as sharp as ever. Simply watch back his past debate performances. During the 2007-2008 cycle, he occasionally messed up a word or said something uncouth; in the current cycle, he is inhibited from following his own trains of thought to completion. That's why his handlers have been providing him with prepared remarks, even in situations where other candidates are speaking off the cuff.

Biden in 2019 is plagued by cognition errors, which impair his ability to communicate. It shouldn't be surprising that such errors are becoming more frequent with a man who turns 77 years old in November (and who once underwent emergency surgery for a brain aneurysm).

The MSM stick to the word "gaffes," disguising the severity of the mental impairment among the large  majority of Americans who are not yet paying close attention.  Tracey convincingly argues that this is what sustains Biden's poll numbers.  And these poll numbers amount to the only reason Mrs. Biden argues for support for her husband: he can beat Trump, based on these poll numbers.

But the political pros on the Democrat side are not fooled, and that is why the long knives being unsheathed against him by the party's power elite, including President Obama's refusal to endorse him and the "leak" of his discouraging Biden's candidacy.

I am not at all an admirer of Biden.  You will not hear from me an argument that his "long public service" deserves praise.  He has enriched himself and his family with foreign money, and he has a disturbing tendency to grope young girls.  But even with my jaded view of the man, it tugs at my heart to see him reduced to a pathetic figure, clinging to his lifelong ambition to be president when it is obvious that he can only humiliate himself more by pretending he has a chance.

At the same time, I admit that he would be such a weak candidate if nominated that President Trump would beat him so handily that it would be a cakewalk for the GOP.  But I just cannot believe that Biden will persist and get the nomination.  Even Democrats not paying attention will catch on before primary voting starts.