Fun. Jeb Bush said he would campaign as a “happy warrior,” by which he primarily meant not an angry one. Trump has shown, though, that you can have fun campaigning even if you are an angry candidate. Very few of his rivals ever seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as Trump was. More often they seemed nervous or calculating or, in Scott Walker’s case, both.

In one of his early appearances with his running mate, Indiana governor Mike Pence, Trump said that the crowd should blame any defeat on him. It is impossible to imagine Hillary Clinton saying the same thing about her running mate, Virginia senator Tim Kaine, because they’re both too uptight.

Trump was able to enjoy himself more than most candidates because he was winning, and because he has little sense of responsibility; and his idea of fun fairly often turns into gleeful malice. (That’s the only way I can make sense of his crazed insinuations about Rafael Cruz’s involvement in the JFK assassination.) But Trump can also be an entertaining candidate. Other conservatives might want to think about loosening up.