A more presidential Donald Trump visits nation’s capital

The Trump campaign did something last Monday evening that other campaigns do all the time but that the Republican frontrunner has never, ever done. It sent out an email with the prepared text of Trump’s speech to AIPAC, the pro-Israel group meeting in Washington.

Prepared text? Anyone who has ever watched a Trump speech knows he doesn’t do prepared texts. But there Trump was, on the floor of the Verizon Center in downtown Washington, looking from side to side as he read his speech from a teleprompter.

Yes, Trump ad-libbed a lot. But as he glanced at the prompter’s glass panels, he was delivering a speech just like the politicians he has mocked over the course of the campaign.

And doing a really good job of it. John Kasich addressed AIPAC half an hour before Trump, and he also read from a prepared text, too, but it was on a piece of paper on the podium and Kasich started off wearing glasses and looking down a lot. Trump was clearly reading at times, but his delivery was as smooth and polished as the best politicians.

Which worried some Trump critics. Yair Rosenberg, at Tablet, found Trump’s performance downright alarming. “What was so disturbing about the speech was that it demonstrated that Trump can comport himself like a traditional politician -- and do so very well,” Rosenberg wrote. “Reading a political address off a teleprompter for the first time, Trump jettisoned his race-baiting and incitement for boilerplate bromides on Israel, Iran, and the Middle East. Drawing on his years of television experience, he came across like any other talking head, adeptly delivering his text without a single serious stumble. In other words, it was Trump’s first presidential campaign speech that sounded remotely presidential.”

Also disturbing to Trump’s critics was the reaction of the AIPAC crowd. Going into the event — it was huge, perhaps 18,000 people filling the arena — there was talk of protests, of rabbis turning their backs and walking out. And yes, there was some of that. But it’s fair to say that overall, Trump’s reception at AIPAC was friendly. You know how an enthusiastic crowd can fill an arena with roars? There was never that. But the applause for Trump grew from polite at the beginning to more-than-just-polite at the end.

It was a presidential day for Trump. He did an extended, onthe-record interview with the Washington Post editorial board. He had a get-to-know-you lunch with a few lawmakers, arranged by Trump endorser Sen. Jeff Sessions. He held a press conference. And he addressed AIPAC.

You know how Trump often expresses amazement that he’s doing all the political stuff that candidates do? “I can’t believe I’m a politician, can you believe this?” Trump said last year on Fox. “I’m a politician, all my life I’ve disrespected politicians now I have to say I guess I’m a politician.”

In Washington on Monday, Trump was a politician. And he was good at it.

That doesn’t mean Trump was an ordinary politician.

How many presidential candidates can hold a press conference at the Washington landmark they are now transforming into a luxury hotel? That’s what Trump did at the Old Post Office, gathering the press in a dusty worksite that will be the atrium of the newest Trump International Hotel. Trump finished the event by leading reporters around the construction site, with more than a few shaking their heads at Trump’s ability to add an element of showmanship to everything he does. Why were they following him around the stacks of sheetrock? Because no other candidate does that sort of thing.

But in the future, Trump promised, look for President Trump to emerge. Last Monday, Trump gave the public a glimpse of what he was talking about.