When the mugging is over, the RNC chairman outlines the Steele Doctrine: “If we haven’t done it, let’s do it. If we haven’t thought of it, think about it. … Don’t just think outside the box—I hate that phrase anyway—take it someplace the box hasn’t even reached yet.”

All of which might sound like hollow rhetoric, if it weren’t for the box-busting nature of the event itself: The summit might be the most un-Republican thing the Republican Party has ever done.