Just to accentuate a point Jeff made in his ruthless deconstruction of Gavin Newsom’s performance in last night’s mock presidential debate from an alternate reality in which America still has sane presidential politics, the California governor didn’t just crib Donald Trump’s lines. He cribbed everyone’s lines.

Jeff noted the extent to which Newsom seemed to be “doing Trump’s dirty work,” talking directly to Fox’s share of the Republican primary electorate with the obvious objective of finishing DeSantis off. He borrowed Trump world’s attack on Ron DeSantis as a “lockdown governor.” Indeed, “Donald Trump laid you out on this,” Newsom added in praise of Trump’s deft rhetorical maneuvering. “Donald Trump himself today called you ‘Red Ron’ for a reason,” the governor later said, “for a reason: because of your complete hypocrisy” in relation to his promises to confront China.

Newsom lifted an attack on DeSantis directly from Nikki Haley, who the California governor said had DeSantis “dead to rights” when she noted that the Florida governor had opposed offshore oil leases off the coast of the Sunshine State and blocked a fracking initiative in the Everglades. Later, Newsom sought to evade a question focused on how either debater would counter a rising China as president by invoking a claim Haley had made about DeSantis welcoming foreign investment to Florida from a Chinese firm that manufactures military aircraft. “Nikki Haley laid you out,” Newsom insisted.

Newsom relied heavily on the work already done by DeSantis’s primary opponents, but that overdependence paled in comparison to the degree to which the California governor leaned into Joe Biden’s messaging. In a ham-fisted display of signaling Newsom’s soldierly status to Democratic elites, he sought to soothe frayed nerves in Biden’s orbit that his attention-seeking displays do not constitute a “shadow campaign” for the White House. “The economy is booming.” Newsom said in praise of “Bidenomics.” “Fourteen million jobs, 10 times more than the last three Republican presidents combined.” Newsom defended the president’s record, his age, and his mental fitness, and he dinged DeSantis for accepting congressionally appropriated CHIPS Act funding — “one of the most significant economic plans since FDR,” Newsom added. Conventional surrogacy? Perhaps. But surrogacy without an ounce of invention.

Newsom often retreated from the weedy, policy-centric discussions about specific state-level policies to mock the Florida governor over his lackluster performance in the polls of Republican primary voters. “You’re down 41 points in your own home state,” he sneered. “When are you going to drop out and at least give Nikki Haley a shot to take down Donald Trump?” Later, he previewed the inevitable: “In a matter of weeks, Ron will bend the knee and endorse Donald Trump.” The punditry sufficed both to dodge the question he was being asked and to allow the polls to do the talking for the California governor.

DeSantis clearly out-prepared Newsom ahead of last night’s debate. But observers of this spectacle have tended to grant Newsom more points on style. He’s a slick, polished debater with charisma and stage presence, they say, in contrast to DeSantis’s wooden affect. Really, what Newsom demonstrated beyond the dispute was that he is an accomplished mimic.