By all accounts, Mike Bloomberg has a healthy ego, and in these first days after his election, that ego has been a source of surprise, even delight. It's not simply his decision to reduce his salary to $1 a year. It's not only his choice to live in his own home and abandon the haunted bedrooms of Gracie Mansion.

What is most impressive, in these first days, is his mixture of common sense and good manners.

In his coffee-shop meeting with Freddy Ferrer, the handshake with Al Sharpton, the meetings with union leaders, he has shown just how easily a confident man can break down barriers. The alarmed headline writers at the New York Post treated these events as if Bloomberg had met with Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. They were, in fact, only symbolic gestures of grace and independence. The city needs both from the next mayor.

Take the Sharpton handshake. Across his two terms, Mayor Giuliani never did manage to shake Sharpton's hand. He never took a single Sharpton phone call. He instructed his underlings to maintain an iron barrier against the dreaded Sharpton.

But no matter what you think of Sharpton (and clearly he provokes much passion), he is a key person in the New York democracy. He might be the most intelligent of our public men. He has a rare gift for brilliant language. He has a constituency that is vital to the city. The Tawana Brawley lousiness still keeps him from any kind of elected future, but he is a crucial part of New York.

Giuliani froze out Sharpton, and thus had to live with a terrible irony: His police strategies saved thousands of young black lives and allowed hundreds of thousands of African-Americans to live more securely. Yet he was perceived by many blacks as a racist.

Hoodlum Profiling

That perception was wrong. Even so-called "racial" profiling by the police was really a strategy of hoodlum profiling

But the image of racial bias, based on the mayor's emotional clumsiness, never left Giuliani. Bloomberg's handshake was a clue to his future as mayor. If Sharpton can help the process of conciliation — and I think he can — then no mayor should be so rigid that he won't shake his hand or take his calls. Sharpton just might have a marvelous new idea.

To be sure, Bloomberg doesn't need Sharpton. But it would be foolish for Bloomberg to raise the gate of the moat, and leave Sharpton out beyond the castle walls, preparing to heave boulders from his catapults. Most serious political quarrels can be traced to offenses against good manners. That handshake was simple good manners.

As a clue to Bloomberg's view of the city, the Sharpton moment — and the more important meetings with Ferrer and the union leaders — showed that Bloomberg was not a rigid ideologue.

He is an apprentice Republican, his current party label driven by expediency rather than conversion. But unlike the Bush administration — which lost the popular vote but made absolutely no attempt to forge a unity government with Democrats — Bloomberg seems intent on forging a city government that crosses party lines. He says he wants gifted, hardworking New Yorkers in that government. Period.

A Certain Freedom

That means a Mayor Bloomberg can pick and choose among good people, without regard to political dogma. He can be serious, but not solemn. He can be tough, but not grim. He can disagree, without being rude. Above all, he can encourage those bold ideas that the city desperately needs over the next four years. Ideas about holding businesses in the city, expanding them to create even more jobs, finding new ways to provide housing for working people, and pushing hard to perfect the education system.

Every New Yorker can recite the problems; Bloomberg must confront those challenges with a bit of a smile on his face, not a snarl.

That's why it's so important for Bloomberg to maintain his freedom from the numbing rigidities of ideology. If a conservative has a good idea, fine. If a liberal has a good idea, fine. Bloomberg can say: Let's examine the idea, see if it's feasible and will add to the vitality of the city and give it a try.

If an idea doesn't work, that's all right, too. Just scrap it fast. Be confident enough to admit a mistake, and then move on.

Bloomberg has his own strengths, some of which could make this a better, more efficient, even a more democratic city.

Above all, he knows the potential of computers. He built his immense fortune on understanding their power and use. In his first week, Bloomberg could expand the concept of Compstat to every city agency.

Build Efficiency

Then each commissioner could immediately see dangerous weaknesses and be forced to act. And instead of being at the mercy of his commissioners, the mayor would see those problems, too. Quickly. Before breakfast.

Bloomberg must understand the potential benefits of this system beyond simple accountability. A state-of-the-art municipal computer network would end long waits at every government agency, thus increasing respect for government. Scanners could pry tons of yellowing documents out of city offices, send them to museums, and allow computers to replace those civil servants who retire.

Those veteran workers themselves could help devise the new system. In the long run, as the number of city workers declines, a fine computer system would save the city government millions of dollars.

Bloomberg also could assign some unemployed dot-commer to devise a computerized system — complete with passwords and PIN numbers — that makes it easier to register to vote. To file changes in address. Above all, to cast votes.

In our next election, every voter should be able to vote from home or office. Every senior citizen should have access to computerized polling places. New citizens should be registered on the day they're sworn in as Americans. In theory, each winning politician should take his or her mandate from as many citizens as possible.

Exceeding Expectations

With his background, Bloomberg could make that happen within months, devising a system for those who will run, and vote, long after he's gone.

For the moment — in his interview with Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," in his Daily News Op-Ed piece yesterday, in his interviews — Bloomberg has been more impressive than any of us could have expected. He is facing the greatest challenge of any mayor since Fiorello LaGuardia spit in the eye of the Great Depression.

Even those of us who dismissed his candidacy as a rich guy's whim must root for him to succeed. If he fails, New York fails. In a time of crisis, even old Dodger fans can root for the Yankees.