Will new Trump surface at the Q?

I’ll be heading up to Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland in a few days to cover the Republican National Convention.

I have no idea what to expect.

Friends keep joking with me about taking my Kevlar. Worried acquaintances question whether it will be safe. There’s ample talk of Chicago and 1968.

Add to that the political climate of the moment. There are Republicans who are excited about their presumptive nominee. There are others who are ashamed of their Grand Old Party, believing it was hijacked. The former will be out in force; the latter likely will stay home or attend Cleveland events but not the convention itself.

Again, I don’t know what to expect.

I was thinking about this the other day in suburban Cincinnati, covering Donald Trump at a speech that included a lot of criticism of people like me, who had to distill something cohesive from an address that jumped from topic to topic, often without rhyme or reason.

Covering stump speeches of any sort grows increasingly challenging as campaigns proceed, since many officeholders and candidates simply repeat the same stuff day after day.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s presidential prospects or others: Candidates have their talking points, and they mostly stay on message. Cover a few speeches, and you can anticipate what’s about to be said.

Reporters stuck in the grind of daily campaign coverage look for new angles and significance from the same words they’ve heard spoken over and over again.

I imagine Trump has thrown even the most seasoned campaign-trail reporters for a loop, however.

TRUMP’S BASICS

I’ve covered three Trump speeches during this odd presidential campaign. While disjointed at times, the billionaire businessman always covers the basics.

He slams the media for biased reporting – in southwestern Ohio, he focused on coverage of a star included in a social media posting and comments he made about Saddam Hussein.

He reiterates his plans to build a wall at the U.S. border with Mexico – he’ll say something like, “Oh, there’s going to be a wall,” then doubles down with promises that it’s getting taller with each passing day.

He touts his business acumen as what’s needed to kick the national economy into overdrive.

He calls people names – “crooked” and “dirty rotten liar,” for example.

And he promises to shake things up, particularly the corrupt politicians .

His supporters love it. He appears to speak his mind, unafraid of offending somebody.

But, again, his speeches are a muddled mess of thoughts, moving fast and furious from one subject to the next. There are no teleprompters; it all feels off the cuff and from the heart.

That plays well at a campaign rally. I don’t know how well that’s going to go over in Cleveland, however, where the party faithful will be called to make his nomination official.

The Republican National Convention doesn’t seem like the place for the speech I’ve heard Trump give several times now during his Ohio appearances.

On a national stage, with the eyes of the nation on the person who could become the most powerful leader in the world, I suspect voters are going to want to hear a different sort of speech.

But, Trump being Trump, I don’t know what to expect.

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.