“There’s an under-appreciated charisma that you can only see by meeting and talking to him,” said Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), a Trump surrogate. At the convention people saw “a different, softer side of Trump…. [T]he way his children speak about him is something that you can’t fake — you can’t make it up.”

Some lawmakers are eating up the special attention.

“Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania’s 3rd District? Sitting with the Trump family?” Kelly gushed in an interview after being invited up to the Trump box. “They didn’t need me to be there. But it was great for me and my wife… to spend time with them and get a chance to see them, do a little one-on-one.”

Kelly backed Trump on the day of Pennsylvania primary in late April, when it was clear he would carry the state. The congressman is now a big fan, raving about how Trump’s kids are “what all of us would like our children and our grandchildren to be.”