Much more on the left than the right, the best imaginable is the enemy of the best available. After decades of B+ service to liberal causes, Chris Matthews was canceled for not being PC enough. After all those years, his gaffs were few enough to be listed, but they were too much for the harpies who care only about what aggrieves them. Bloomberg would probably do a good job as president. But the left doesn’t really want good government; it wants good optics. It wants a president who looks and sounds like Obama looked and sounded. Those were good things, but they were not the only things.

Bloomberg cannot buy the election. He can only buy awareness. He has the money to put himself on everyone’s radar. But lots of heavily funded candidates lose. One must have enough money to campaign, but one cannot have enough money to win.

The real problem for Bloomberg, post-South Carolina, is whom he is hurting in real terms. Is he now hurting the no longer moribund Biden by taking votes from him, or is he hurting Bernie by mounting an attack on his misguided view of the world? When Biden was not going to be nominated, and no one else worth supporting looked terribly viable against Trump, Bloomberg was arguably a grayish knight of moderation. But now, with Biden at least temporarily revitalized going into today’s (Super Tuesday) voting, Bloomberg may be hurting Joe more than Bernie. (I wish I had a nickel for every political act that makes me think of the scene in The Hunt for Red October where the Russian sub commander torpedoes his own boat.)