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Valley delegates to RNC say Trump will bring excitement, unknown to convention
CLEVELAND
The Super Bowl is finally coming to Cleveland.
Don’t get too excited, Browns fans. It has nothing to do with your NFL team.
The Republican National Convention – what Columbiana County Republican Party Chairman Dave Johnson calls “the Super Bowl of politics” – officially kicks off in Cleveland on Monday for four days. The convention sessions are at Quicken Loans Arena, home to the NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers, with numerous events at locations throughout the city.
The convention ends Thursday night with the acceptance speech from New York billionaire Donald Trump, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. The presumptive label will be removed when delegates vote to make him the official nominee at the convention.
“It’s an exciting time,” said Johnson, of Salem, a delegate attending his eighth RNC. “You meet a lot of interesting people, most of who are rank-and-file Republicans from every state.”
Trump has never held political office and is known for saying outrageous and controversial things about immigration, minorities, women and his own political party. That resulted in a number of major Republican figures skipping the convention.
“We’ll have nontraditional speakers during the convention – and that should be interesting,” said Mahoning County Republican Party Vice Chairwoman Tracey Winbush of Youngstown, who is attending her second convention and first as a delegate.
Winbush has been critical of Trump but is supporting him over Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
“We need to make sure we don’t get Hillary Clinton elected,” she said. “My thoughts on Trump have softened, but he is not the normal candidate. I have looked at him as a politician and a traditional candidate, and he’s not. He is who he is. He’s not politically correct, and he’s direct. He might be curt, but he’s not rude. I don’t think he’s racist. He just speaks his mind. He isn’t anti-woman. He comes from a different era.”
U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-6th, of Marietta, who’s also attending his second convention and will host a Thursday breakfast for Ohio convention delegates, said, “My desire is we come out of this convention unified as a party focused on pro-growth, job creation, national security, judges on the Supreme Court who understand the Constitution, and we rally behind our candidate.
“There will probably be some drama,” he added. “We have a very unconventional candidate. ... My expectation is we’ll be able to overcome the drama and unify.”
Dave Johnson said Trump is “a wild card. He’s brought a lot of excitement to the party. He’s controversial, but he’ll get the support of Reagan Democrats and what Richard Nixon called the ‘Silent Majority.’ There is a mood in the country that is unsettled with immigration and the stagnate economy.”
John Creed of Liberty has been to three other Republican conventions, but this is his first as an alternate delegate.
“This convention might be a little more crazy than the others, and it will be a lot of fun,” he said. “What you hope for the most is the whole event represents Republican values. We have a chance to show people those values.”
Though all of Ohio’s delegates are bound to vote for Gov. John Kasich, who won the state’s primary and all 66 of its delegates in March, those representing the Mahoning Valley say they have confidence in Trump.
“He’s a conservative and he’s strong, and he’s got everyone nervous,” Creed said.
Regarding security, Mahoning County Republican Party Chairman Mark Munroe, an alternate delegate attending his third convention, said, “It will be interesting to see the difference in security between this convention and others. Security is always a concern, but it will be greater this time.”
Among the thousands of law-enforcement officials from outside of Cleveland working at the convention are seven Youngstown police officers and two Mahoning County deputy sheriffs.
Youngstown is sending five members of the regional SWAT team and two members of its bomb squad, said Police Chief Robin Lees.
“It’s a small contingent, and they won’t be there the whole time,” he said. “We were asked by Cleveland police and the FBI to assist.”
Cleveland will reimburse the wages and travel costs for the officers and the deputies, said Lees and Sheriff Jerry Greene.
At the request of the Ohio Adult Parole Authority, about 50 Mahoning County jail beds, if needed, will be provided to house people who may be arrested in Cleveland during the convention, the sheriff said.
For liability reasons, the sheriff said he has denied requests by his deputies to work extra-duty security for private companies in Cleveland during the GOP convention.
Local Republicans who aren’t delegates are planning to spend time in Cleveland this week.
Trumbull County Republican Chairman Randy Law said the party is sponsoring an event Monday in Cleveland at Sterle’s Country House on East 55th Street.
The event, with three entertainers, will cost $50 a person with a bus back and forth from Warren costing $22 a person.
“It’s an opportunity to get people close to the convention who can’t get inside,” Law said. “It’s exciting to have the convention be this close.”
The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber will bring a group of 13 site selectors – who recommend locations to various businesses – to Cleveland on Tuesday for the convention, said Guy Coviello, the regional chamber’s vice president of government affairs.
The site selectors will be in the Mahoning Valley on Monday and Wednesday, he said.
Also, chamber officials will be in a parking lot near the Q every day with the 3-D-printed, life-size Donald Trump bobblehead it commissioned, Coviello said. A similar bobblehead is being created of Clinton for the first presidential debate in Dayton.
State Sen. Capri Cafaro of Liberty, D-32nd, also will be at the RNC as an analyst for Fox News.
The Democrat will be on “Fox & Friends” at 4 and 5 a.m. Monday and on the network’s news show at 11:30 a.m. that day. She’ll also be on at 1 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday providing her insight into the Republican convention.
Cafaro, who has done this type of work for the past year at no fee, said she also likely will do analysis for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and France 24, and is expected to be booked for CNN.
Other Democrats – including U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, and ex-Gov. Ted Strickland, the party’s U.S. Senate nominee – will be in Cleveland for news conferences to rebut what Republicans are saying and doing at the convention.