THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

But then he only had to appeal to a portion of the lunatic fringe to get what he wanted. Now that The Great Orange Fungus is the Republican candidate for president, he is discovering that a runaway mouth is a definite handicap. As much as he hates it, Donald Trump is now letting other people tell him what to do.

After months of flailing attempts, Donald J. Trump has begun to recast his political message in more structured terms and wrestle with his temptation to go off script, as his campaign seeks to revive his fading candidacy and turn the focus this fall to Hillary Clinton’s honesty and integrity.

Working off a script from his reshuffled team of advisers, Mr. Trump is also drastically tempering his language about the signature issue of his campaign: immigration. After winning the Republican nomination on a promise to deport all 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally, he indicated on Wednesday night that he was considering allowing some to stay if they had lived in the United States for many years, lacked criminal records and paid back taxes.

“We are going to come out with a decision very soon,” he said on Fox News, signaling flexibility on an issue that sharply divides undecided voters. He is expected to deliver a speech on immigration next week in Phoenix.

Mr. Trump is also spending far less time attacking his fellow Republicans and picking fights with people other than Mrs. Clinton, instead hammering away at her State Department tenure and her family’s charitable foundation. And he is aligning his stump speeches with his television advertising, vowing to crack down on violent crime and improve border security.

Aware of his unpopularity with white moderate voters, especially women who have been turned off by his racially charged words, he is trying to show interest in the lives of African-Americans and Hispanics, too, even as he uses language that offends those groups.

Many Republicans, weary of repeated promises of a reborn Mr. Trump, remain skeptical that he can stick to his message over the next 11 weeks, and some say it is too late to persuade most voters to see him anew.

Poor Donald, even if he can keep his mouth on a short leash, he will find that all those burnt bridges are difficult if not impossible to rebuild in the time left.