The Republican National Convention opens today, with the first official session showing the upcoming Dennis Quaid film Reagan to delegates. That may be the only part of this convention that won't get redefined by the events of this past Saturday. After miraculously surviving an assassination attempt, Donald Trump has every reason to recalculate his message to meet the moment, and in doing so reshape the convention to seize the high ground from a Democrat Party in full-scale meltdown.

Trump had already begun restrategizing the campaign after Joe Biden's disastrous debate gave him an opening to broaden the GOP/MAGA tent. The day after surviving an assassin's bullet, Trump told Salena Zito that he will completely rethink his acceptance speech at the convention too. This is a moment to demonstrate leadership, made possible by a vacuum of it at the moment:

Former President Donald Trump has completely rewritten his convention speech in light of the assassination attempt against him on Saturday and will call on Thursday for a new effort at national unity.

In an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner a day after being hit by a sniper’s bullet, Trump said he wanted to take advantage of a historic moment and draw the country together.

“The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger,” he said, “Had this not happened, this would’ve been one of the most incredible speeches” aimed mostly at the policies of President Joe Biden. “Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now.”

Presumably, the "humdinger" would have largely followed his successful rally rhetoric. And before Saturday's near-death experience, Trump had little reason to change directions, presumably. He'd already begun leading polls even before his debate with Biden, and momentum had built up for his campaign as Biden rarely emerged in extemporaneous public settings.

But after the "surreal" moment in Butler County, PA, it's understandable that Trump views the convention and the rest of the campaign differently. "I'm supposed to be dead," Trump told the New York Post:

US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spent much of the flight talking to Trump and found his optimism “unbelievable.”

“He feels like he has a new lease on life,” Graham said.

There’s already some proof of that, as Trump related that his brush with death had changed his mind about the speech he will give Thursday to accept his party’s nomination for the third consecutive time. 

“I had all prepared an extremely tough speech, really good, all about the corrupt, horrible administration,” he said, then suddenly added: “But I threw it away.”

Again, we saw signs of new strategies and approaches over the last couple of weeks. Trump was more disciplined at the debate and largely refrained from personal attacks on Biden's obvious cognitive decline. He has been more focused on broadening his appeal, as Axios reported a couple of weeks ago, thanks to the opening that Biden provided in the debate.

Now, with Biden trying and failing three times to provide leadership after the assassination attempt, Trump has another opening to seize it from him, as he hints to Salena:

He has switched, he said, from planning to excite his voter base to one that demonstrates his belief that the attack on him at a rally in Pennsylvania had changed the election campaign entirely. Both Republicans and Democrats have acknowledged this in the aftermath of Saturday’s shocking incident. ...

“This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” he said.

Biden had an opportunity last night -- and two others on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon -- to police his own party and campaign for their rhetoric. Biden took a pass on that, instead, opting to scold everyone else instead. Now Trump has the same opportunity to rise to the occasion and rely on positive messaging and "dial down the rhetoric" himself to set an example for the nation. And he certainly has a personal interest in succeeding on that score, as Saturday night unfortunately showed, but we all do. 

An appeal to that yearning backed up by actual positive action -- like dumping the prepared speech and opting to go positive isn't just what the current environment needs. It's an opportunity to prove leadership to a country in desperate search of authentic inspiration. That's smart politics by Trump, of course, but it's also a sign that his miraculous survival has really had an impact on Trump and his approach to politics. And that will make this a very interesting convention indeed.

Here's an interesting question to ponder: Will it impact his choice of running mate?