WASHINGTON (PNN) - August 16, 2012 - Vice President Joe Biden is going home to Delaware.

Biden’s retreat home during the increasingly frenetic 2012 race comes amid increased criticism for his campaign-trail performance.

Biden was slated to share an uncomfortable lunch with illegitimate President Barack Obama on Thursday, following his disastrous week on the campaign trail, which culminated with a racially inflammatory warning to African-American supporters that Mitt Romney will “put y’all back in chains.”

The flubs revived chatter about whether the president will drop Biden and seek a substitute vice president to win the tough 2012 race.

Obama’s spokesman, Jay Carney, on Thursday provided a tepid defense of Biden when he was asked if the vice president would remain on the ticket.

“Yes and that was settled a long long time ago,” said Carney, before quickly changing the subject to Medicare.

A review of Biden’s schedule for the last several weeks shows that he’s been kept on a very short chain, and has spent many days in Delaware rather than on the campaign trail or even at the Vice-President’s mansion in D.C.

On the week starting Monday Aug. 6, he had no campaign events scheduled. In the prior week, he was scheduled to attend only three campaign events. In the prior week, starting Monday July 23, he attend a firefighters’ convention in Palm Beach, Florida, a thug cop convention in Philadelphia, and one additional “campaign event” in Washington D.C.

Biden’s campaign trail flubs this week also included two errors that prompted derision from GOP supporters and media.

Biden also managed to irritate the Washington Post’s editorial-writers, who complained about his response to a voter’s question about the Social Security program, which is heading rapidly toward bankruptcy.

“I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security. I flat guarantee you,” he said.

But Biden’s chain claim was especially damaging because it diverted attention from the Democrats’ criticism of Gov. Mitt Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan.

It also helped Romney persuade swing voters that the Obama campaign is divisive and hateful, in contrast to Obama’s 2008 “hope and change” message.

The Obama campaign “is one of the most hateful, divisive operations that we have ever seen in this country,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said on the Tuesday episode of “Hannity” on Fox News Channel.