Trump’s surprising embrace of restraint, discipline pays dividends

The past three weeks have been a deplorable stretch for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and while there have been similar stretches in the past, the problem for the Democratic nominee is this:

These past three deplorable weeks for Clinton have coincided with the best three weeks for Donald Trump.

{mosads}From a media perspective, Trump’s campaign strategy in the primaries and for the first part of the general has consisted of the scorched-earth (and Twitter) variety: Get personal with opponents (Low Energy Jeb, Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted), offering broad campaign themes (making America great, building a wall along the southern border, extreme vetting of those entering the country from Muslim areas, fixing the VA, knocking the hell out of ISIS, replacing Obamacare, etc), while offering few details on how to accomplish such things in real-world reality.

And it worked, as Trump got more votes in the primary — despite 16 other opponents there to divide up the pie — than any other GOP nominee in history.

But in the general, especially during and after the Republican National Convention and for a few weeks in August, Trump’s attack-everyone-and-anyone strategy was largely a turnoff to those outside his relatively limited base, making his temperament and fitness to be leader of the free world fair play.

But then a change to the campaign — one that has arguably turned this race on its head — was made when Paul Manafort was axed and Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon were brought in as essentially co-chairs to run the show.

Conway — who had plenty of television experience as a pundit with guest spots “Good Morning America,” “Meet the Press,” “Real Time with Bill Maher” and Fox News — has played the role of the campaign’s public face and has done so credibly like a pro. For those paying attention, she’s been a decided upgrade from the awkward, cheesy Manafort, whose lack of national media experience was readily apparent.

But it was Bannon who was the primary focus of many in the press and pundit class — particularly compromised media critics — who seem to take their cues from the Clinton campaign. After all, Bannon came from running Breitbart, an unapologetic, pro-Trump online publication.

But to the surprise of many, given his own media background and on-air experience (Bannon hosted a daily show on Sirius XM), he shown restraint in not responding, despite being labelled the next Joseph Goebbels.

In fact, unless something is being missed here, he hasn’t given one interview since coming on board. Why? Because he knows that his voice will control any news cycle and likely not in a good way, given all of his enemies in traditional and left-leaning media.

And if you notice anything about Trump lately, it’s that he revolves around the same theme:

Restraint.

The first of the bigger tests for Trump to keep his mouth shut came after his visit to flood-ravaged Louisiana. The trip came just three days after the biggest natural disaster to hit the U.S. since Superstorm Sandy. It turned out to be a coup for the campaign, which was trailing Clinton badly nationally and in every swing state he needs to win. Clinton only issued a terse statement while saying she would visit when it didn’t hamper rescue and recovery efforts. Nearly a month later, she still hasn’t gone and likely never will.

But for Trump, it showed leadership and the ability to be presidential. While President Obama dithered on Martha’s Vineyard and wouldn’t even offer a public statement on the devastation, Trump was there, out-hustling his opponents.

He could have crowed about it from there but let the narrative and visuals largely speak for themselves. His numbers went up as a result.

But the real test would come after Clinton’s collapse while leaving a 9/11 memorial in New York City. A near-collapse caught on video forced the campaign to acknowledge it had been concealing a pneumonia diagnosis for two days prior.

The criticisms of Clinton following that episode would have normally resulted in a tweetstorm and media tour for Trump, but something that few are talking about happened instead: He showed empathy. He showed restraint. He actually said the right things about hoping for a full recovery and looking forward to debating her on Sept. 26, as evidenced by this exchange with Fox’s Sean Hannity on Tuesday night:

HANNITY: Her campaign is claiming that except for pneumonia, she’s completely healthy. It took them a long time to get to the pneumonia excuse. What is your overall view of her health?

TRUMP: I really have no view. I just hope she gets better.

And a bit later, Hannity broached the number of days Clinton has taken off since Aug. 1 (now 15 vs. 5 for Trump).

HANNITY: I can’t think of a day that you didn’t even have a rally or a day that you actually took off. You once said that Jeb Bush was low energy. With that schedule, she’s making Jeb Bush look like the Energizer Bunny.

TRUMP: All I can tell you, I can only speak for myself.

This change in strategy by toning down unnecessary rhetoric that can only lead to the unforced error of bringing negative attention off Clinton and onto him is no accident. In this case, if Trump does go start questioning, say, Clinton’s true health status or makes a quip about her collapsing into that van, the focus goes back on him.

And in the process, the laughable argument, made by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and others, that scrutiny around her health is a sexist exercise only somehow becomes part of an adult conversation.

Trump is now within 1.8 points of Clinton in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, gaining a stunning (given his high unfavorables) 7.1 points in the past five weeks. All the big swing states, including ones thought not to be in play, like Maine and Nevada, are now moving firmly in his direction.

Clinton is still the odds-on favorite, but the campaign is wobbly. Trump is beating her to every punch, simply by outworking her. That aspect likely won’t change until Nov. 8. And she can’t get her message out — whatever that is besides attacking her opponent and his supporters — all thanks to continued questions about her health, her foundation, her honesty and her emails.

But if Trump continues to ride this wave all the way to victory in November — which is still more unlikely than likely — the biggest moment of this campaign was adding Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon to teach him the two words that was as foreign as any to him:

Restraint.

Discipline.

Trump didn’t need to embrace those two words to defeat 16 opponents in the primary.

He absolutely needs to in order to defeat the only one left now.

Concha is a media reporter for The Hill.

The views expressed by Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.