Before President Trump's address to a joint session of Congress, I asked several Republican operatives, professionals who both opposed and supported Trump in the GOP primaries, to let me know what they thought.

"A good speech, and most importantly, it was better than any thought it would be," emailed Curt Anderson, who ran Bobby Jindal's presidential campaign. [Trump said] "'My job is not to represent the world, my job is to represent the United States of America' — AND THE DEMOCRATS DID NOT APPLAUD. Just think about that for a moment. This simple sentence captures the heart of Trump's appeal. And it is also the Achilles heel of the Democrats."

"Outstanding speech," said Ryan Williams, who worked for Mitt Romney in 2012. "By far his most presidential, uplifting, disciplined and dignified speech. I hope to God that he doesn't ruin it tomorrow morning with a 7 a.m. Twitter rant."

"This speech wasn't big, it was colossal!" wrote Barry Bennett, who worked for both Ben Carson and Trump and has now formed a new consulting firm with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. "Tonight millions of doubters saw the president."

Bennett meant that there are a lot of Americans who are not in full not-my-president mode, but who do question Trump's presidential stature. Polls will tell more, but it seems possible that on Tuesday night some of them saw Trump as more of a president than they did before the speech.

Some were predicting a bump in the polls for Trump even before he finished. About half an hour into the speech, another Republican political strategist, Alex Castellanos, tweeted, "With this speech @RealDonaldTrump fav rating will go up 6 to 8%."

Before the speech, a number of analysts and strategists urged Trump to spend a lot of time talking about jobs. Yes, the unemployment rate is down a lot from the worst days of the economic downturn, but people are struggling to keep up. They want to know that Trump will work to create jobs — so they can finally get one, or, if they are employed, so they can get a better one.

Trump delivered, mentioning jobs a dozen times in the speech. Among them:

He is "going to bring back millions of jobs."

His coming infrastructure proposal will "create millions of new jobs."

He's working "to massively reduce job-crushing regulations."

His approval of pipeline projects will create "tens of thousands of jobs."

Since his election, big companies have taken actions to "create tens of thousands of new American jobs."

He has already withdrawn from the "job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership."

Immigration reform must have as its goal "to improve jobs and wages for Americans."

And more. Overall, a huge part of Trump's speech focused in the broadest sense on improving Americans' economic well-being and on his promises to "restart the engine of the American economy."

If there was another grand theme, it was safety — protecting the American public from terrorism, from criminal illegal immigrants, from violent crime in general, from job-stealing economic policies, from the failures of Obamacare, and more. Trump used some form of the word "protect" seven times in the speech.

One more thing. Before Trump drove to the Capitol, there was a lot of breathless discussion about the possibility he would pronounce himself open to a big deal on comprehensive immigration reform, an agreement that would include a path to either legal status or citizenship for the 12 million immigrants in the country illegally. Pundit after pundit declared it a "Nixon goes to China" moment — only someone who had been as tough on illegal immigration as Trump could turn around and make a deal.

Some of the talk sounded crazy, and it was. Trump did indeed discuss immigration reform, but he not only did not mention the fate of the 12 million, he discussed the issue in a way sure to alienate any Democrat who might even consider a deal. Trump said illegal immigration reduces wages for American workers. He said those who come to the U.S. "ought to be able to support themselves financially." That there should be less low-skilled immigration. And then Trump's offer: "I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: to improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nation's security, and to restore respect for our laws," he said.

It won't happen. "Whew!" tweeted Mickey Kaus, the Democratic writer who was a staunch opponent of the "Gang of Eight" effort. "This was wrong time to start negotiating some grand deal."

What no one seemed to consider, in all the pre-speech hyperventilating, was why Trump would cavalierly, and with almost no notice or preparation, break one of the most passionately repeated promises of his campaign. The answer was he wouldn't.

In the end, the speech was all about jobs and safety and that one simple Trump declaration that Curt Anderson noticed: "My job is not to represent the world. My job is to represent the United States of America."

"I could win A LOT OF ELECTIONS on this," Anderson wrote, noting those Democrats who stayed seated and silent. "I cannot imagine a Democrat in a tough race who could defend their opposition to this."

There was some snickering in the room when Trump announced that, "The time for trivial fights is behind us." Doesn't the president read his own Twitter feed? But the fact is, Trump used the highest-profile moment of his presidency so far to go big — that is, to focus on the voters' most deeply-felt concerns. If a speech could capture the whole theme of a presidency, Trump did it on Tuesday night.