Joe Biden said he was “very close” to a final decision about whether to run for the White House. That was on February 26, 2019. Or perhaps it was February 26, 2018. Or maybe it was February 26, 2004. The former vice president has been inches away from declaring he’s taking a shot at the presidency for so long now that it is becoming difficult to keep straight Biden’s actual (1988, 2008) and almost (2004, 2016) and possible (2020) campaigns. The more important question for his current Democratic primary chances, though, is whether Biden’s drawn-out deliberations are pure indecision or craftily strategic. “It’s genuine indecision,” a Democratic strategist who is in touch with Bidenworld says, “that his team is trying to make into good strategy, by basically waging a Rose Garden campaign of leaks and trial balloons.”

On the surface, Biden’s delay has produced mostly awkwardness and apologies. In January, during a speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, he seemed weirdly out of touch with the realities of modern Washington by saying, “I read in The New York Times today that . . . one of my problems is, if I were to ever run for president, I like Republicans. O.K. Well, bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” A few weeks later, Biden infuriated gay activists by calling his vice-presidential successor, Mike Pence, a “decent guy.” This week, Biden completed a strange sort of trifecta by musing that “I wish I could have done something,” so Anita Hill was treated fairly by the Senate Judiciary Committee during the brutal 1991 Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Biden was merely the chairman of the committee at the time.

Maybe it’s all a methodical attempt to anticipate and defuse criticism of the likely candidate. Probably not. “Biden’s gonna Biden, right?” says Rebecca Katz, a Democratic strategist who ran Cynthia Nixon’s losing campaign for governor in New York, and who helped Nixon craft a Washington Post op-ed that blasted Biden for “hollow civility” in his remarks about the gay-unfriendly Pence. “Biden says what’s on his mind, and it’s usually authentic, until it doesn’t sound quite right in 2019. If I were working for him, I would not let him announce until December, to try to limit the gaffes.”

It’s unlikely Biden would or could wait quite that long to make a run official, but being consistently on top in public polling has given him the luxury of waiting, as lesser-known contenders eagerly jump into the field. Yet emotion, not data, is the main reason for Biden’s hesitation. Is he willing to subject his family, particularly his younger son, Hunter, to the harsh scrutiny of a campaign? Biden would also risk tarnishing the halo he currently enjoys from serving under President Barack Obama. “He is looking at this race with a bunch of ego. He doesn’t see anyone else in the field as good as he is,” a top advisor to one of the Democratic contenders says. “But of the declared and likely contenders, Biden does have the most to lose, reputationally, in what would be his last race.”

So while their man continues to mull a run, Biden’s inner circle has been using the time to see how different gimmicks might affect Biden’s popularity. They know that Biden’s age would be an issue for primary voters—his 78th birthday falls two weeks after Election Day 2020—so word was leaked that Biden is considering pledging, in advance, to serve only one term. His mid-March meeting with Stacey Abrams, the dynamic 2018 Georgia gubernatorial candidate, quickly found its way into print, followed by chatter that Biden could offer Abrams the vice-presidential slot at the outset of the primaries. It was a transparent, and clumsy, way to test how Biden might help himself with women, Southerners, and black voters. “His team knows Biden would start off as the front-runner. What they’re trying to gauge is whether that’s a real thing,” says a Democratic strategist who worked for Hillary Clinton, and saw her favorables crater once Clinton declared her 2016 candidacy. “They’re saying, ‘Is that a durable cushion of support, or will we give back half or two-thirds of that support within three months, after we decide to get in the race?’”