CLEVELAND — “Would anyone like a bottle of water while you’re waiting for your luggage?” a chipper volunteer, working for the city’s visitor and convention bureau, said as she maneuvered a vertical cooler of water bottles at the Cleveland airport’s baggage claim.
Welcome to the nervously anticipated, potentially Trumpocalyptic Republican National Convention.
Rarely has a national convention incited so many jitters. There has been widespread media speculation about possible clashes between supporters and opponents of Donald Trump. The convention comes amid a violent summer that has seen police shootings, huge protest marches, the Dallas police ambush, as well as attacks in Orlando, Florida, and Nice, France.
But even as local hospitals open up extra bed space in case of mass casualties, and battalions of police officers on bikes prepare to swarm around the protest areas, Cleveland is determined to put a bright, sunny, Midwest Nice face on this week’s GOP gathering.
“We are friendly. This is a good place to be. And we want people to come back,” the mayor’s media relations director, Daniel Williams, said Sunday on a bright morning with chamber of commerce weather. “This is a Midwest city with a Southern hospitality.”
There’s no mistaking the fact that a political wave is about to crash upon this city. Many of the billboards have political messages, including one, from a group opposing homophobia, that features an artist’s rendering of Donald Trump about to engage in a lip lock with Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
On Sunday, an airplane circled the skies above Cleveland pulling a banner that said: “Hillary For Prison 2016.”
Jersey barriers and tall fencing abound. Police checkpoints have appeared throughout the downtown area. There are multiple security zones. The delegates will assemble in the Quicken Loans Arena — known locally as “the Q” — while 15,000 media people will work two-thirds of a mile away at the convention center.
This is the first Republican convention here since 1936. You don’t have to Google that bit of information because a huge banner draped on the side of a building on Euclid Street mentions it. There are also signs with fun facts about Cleveland, such as:
“In 1924, Cleveland became home to Hector Boiardi’s first restaurant. Today, you can find his famous sauce under the name Chef Boyardee.”
And: “The first major rock + roll concert, the Moondog Coronation Ball, was in Cleveland in 1952.”
The city caught friendly weather this weekend after a Saturday morning rainstorm. The air cleared. The sun, as red as a panic button, set over Lake Erie Saturday evening as temperatures mellowed into the 60s. The visitor might think: What’s not to like about Cleveland?!
The greeters are everywhere, many of them volunteers, wearing white shirts and red caps. Travelers getting off their planes will immediately encounter people handing out maps and city guides.
“We the People Welcome You to Cleveland,” the lamppost banners hung all over the city declare.
How many people will see those welcome banners is unclear. The city has said it expects 50,000 people. But some major corporate sponsors have pulled out. A number of prominent Republicans — and not just the ones from the Bush family — are skipping the convention, which will nominate the anti-establishment real estate tycoon from New York.
The Cleveland police, bolstered with federal dollars for security, bought 300 bikes and trained officers how to do their jobs on two wheels.
The state has an open carry law that permits people to walk around with loaded handguns or long guns. But there was no sign anyone brought guns to the first protest march, held Saturday.
“We’re not going to impede their Second Amendment rights,” Police Chief Calvin D. Williams said at a news conference on Sunday morning. But he said people have a legal responsibility not to menace anyone with those weapons — or be perceived as being menacing. After the news conference, he said in an interview that his officers have been trained to approach anyone carrying a gun openly and explain the law to them.
“We keep an eye on them. If we think they’re an issue, we kind of stay with them. If we don’t think they’re an issue, they go about their business,” Williams told The Washington Post.
Mayor Frank G. Jackson said in an interview that his goal is for the Republicans to have a successful convention and for Cleveland to remain safe and secure. The convention, however fraught with dangers at a time of national insecurity, could be a boon for a city once derided as the Mistake on the Lake but seemingly on the way up — having just celebrated an NBA championship with a public gathering that drew a million people.
“It’s open for business. It’s business with some inconvenience,” the mayor said of his city after being slightly late for the news conference (“We’re learning to navigate road closures and fencing”).
A young man at the news conference said people under 21 have a hard time finding a public restroom — since they cannot go into bars — and said he was told by a police officer “to go down the alley.”
Williams responded: “We have port-o-potties all over downtown. They’re green things with a white top.”
The chief said the city has been preparing for the Republican National Convention for two years and has brought in “thousands” of officers from “hundreds” of other police departments for additional security, some as far away as California, Florida and Maine.
“I’m ready to get this started, to be honest,” Williams said. “It’s game time.”