He seemed bowed, irascible. She seemed buoyant, effervescent. It was as poised a performance as she’s finessed in a long time, and while I’ve just about given up making predictions about this confounding election — I never thought Donald Trump would last so long, and I never saw Ben Carson coming — I think Clinton benefited more from Tuesday’s stage than Sanders did.

She mixed confidence and moments of passion with instances of humor, and her manner was less didactic and robotic than it can often be. From Cooper and from the four men bookending her at the lecterns, she had everything thrown at her: Iraq, Benghazi, her coziness with Wall Street, her personal wealth.

But she was seldom rattled, though the discussion of her use of a home-brewed server for her emails as secretary of state did prompt a visible stiffening of her posture, a conspicuous strain in her smile. Will she ever, ever find language that takes full ownership of her mistake and that puts real flesh on her continued claim that she’s being as transparent as possible?

It was possibly her worst moment.

It was perhaps Sanders’s best. Surprisingly, he called for an end to talk about the emails, saying there were more important issues to focus on. High-mindedness met unusual campaign-trail generosity and gallantry. Clinton laughed and beamed. They shook hands, and I half expected a hug.

The debate isn’t going to change the fortunes of Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb, who were at the edges of the stage and will remain on the edges of the race. O’Malley might benefit an iota, and grew bolder as the night progressed.

Sanders grew redundant, returning with questionable frequency to a single issue — greed and income inequality — that made him sound like a one-note candidate. He’s 100 percent right to question corporations and trumpet the plight of the middle class. But he does so as more of a firebrand, calling for a “political revolution,” than as someone who can be trusted to make meaningful progress.

Clinton had her own redundancies, saying twice if not thrice as often as was necessary that she’d be the first female president. She’s gone from sidestepping her gender in 2008 to roaring about it now.