Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Not bad for Bloomberg. Although he was probably the weakest on points of everyone on stage — they pretty much all delivered strong performances, with Warren and Pete Buttigieg and Biden especially vigorous, and Bernie Sanders his standard old self — he did fine.

He survived many quivers of slings and arrows without making big mistakes. Nobody expects raw, pulsing magnetism from Mike Bloomberg. He came across as calm and competent, more no-nonsense manager than persuasive politician, which is kind of the point…

He was strong on climate change and energy. He gave a fluid answer on his billions, saying simply that he now wanted to spend his money to defeat Trump, as a legacy to future generations. His now-canned response on stop-and-frisk worked well enough.

He held his own in an exchange about business and jobs, though Sanders was right to call his charge that the alternative to capitalism is communism a “cheap shot.” Bloomberg knows well, for instance, that, just like Medicare and Medicaid and the VA, a public option is a modest brand of socialism, not communism.