Former Vice President Joe Biden’s current strategy to win the Democratic presidential nomination is obvious. Even as every newspaper columnist and TV talking head writhes in agony about how much “more” they want to see from him, Biden certainly knows that doesn’t need them. He doesn’t need the highly anticipated endorsement from Frank Bruni of the New York Times. He needs the support of Democratic primary voters.

But after Wednesday’s debate, Bruni complained that Biden “wasn’t the old Biden” that he hoped to see. “I so hoped and I so want to say otherwise, because I believe him to be a decent man,” wrote Bruni. “But there’s that way in which he trails off at the end of a sentence or an argument, all the little hiccups en route, the messy seams connecting one thought to the next, the demeanor that falls into a maddening gray area between engaged and fully animated.”