“I know some of the people around him who are drilling down,” says former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, “and I think it’s something he’s genuinely interested in.”

A key GOP player in New York State, who would speak only off the record, says Trump’s recent cawing reminds him of something.

“In 1988, late in the election cycle, I got a call [from his people]: ‘How quickly can you get “Trump for President” signs done?’ We did them overnight. The next day we got a call: ‘Forget about it.’ I’ve been in politics a lot of years, and I’ve always found him to be a pompous ass.”…

It’s odd, given that Trump’s personal brand is built on outsized luxury, gilded everything. Living as we have with Trump all these years, most New Yorkers find him crass, gauche and self-aggrandizing. But to a large swath of middle America, the Trump name is associated with a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps work ethic: He’s a man who made it, lost it, then made it again. He’s raised three children, none of whom have ever done anything publicly embarrassing. His penchant for obnoxious statements can also be read as refreshingly candid straight-talk — a stark contrast against the professorial Obama.

So while it’s not very presidential to be getting into it with Whoopi Goldberg on daytime TV, or injecting yourself in the melodrama that is Charlie Sheen, or simultaneously pimping the catfights on your reality show, Trump may be playing a longer game. After all, why come out so vehemently against same-sex marriage if not to appeal to voters in the Bible Belt? Is he willing to take a short-term hit in liberal New York to woo the conservative base?