During his four years in office, Trump had the lowest average approval of any president since Gallup began polling in the s. That Trump appears to have the upper hand in the race is a tribute as much - if not more - to the weakness of his current opponent than to his own appeal. So his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention was a crucial moment for Trump, not just his last chance to command the sole focus of a national TV audience, but one with, in theory, a built-in sympathy factor stemming from the horrendous attempt on his life last weekend.
Trump said at the start of the week that he had discarded the "humdinger" of a speech that was planned and instead of an effort to excite his base would be seizing the "chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world together.
But for the target audience - that small but crucial pool of undecided or wavering voters who likely hold the outcome in their hands - the speech served a crucial political purpose: disrupting, at least temporarily, the negative impressions of Trump that have fueled his unpopularity. Instead of loud, clownish shouting, the speech was delivered in a normal, at-times emotional tone of voice. The backdrop of the assassination attempt demanded a more serious affect than Trump often adopts, and his presentation mostly met the moment.
The hard edge of grievance interrupted when Trump referenced his legal problems, and his handlers must have been tense when he started ad-libbing shout-outs to family and cronies, citing all the subpoenas his sons have fielded and referring to "crazy Nancy Pelosi.
As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart," Trump said. That could have been an excerpt from then-Sen. Barack Obama's famous "red states and blue states" keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in Boston. It helped propel Obama to electoral success. Will it do the same for Trump? Hard to say without knowing if the relatively "kinder gentler" Trump rhetoric was anything more than a one-night stand, let alone without knowing for sure who he'll be running against.
