"Why Trump?" I ask the man selling "Make America Great Again" hats in downtown Cleveland. "Well, I wasn't gonna do Hillary," he says flatly.
What about Cruz or some other Republican? Steve Scanlon of Connecticut shakes his head and launches into a sell you've heard by now.
"[Trump] just tells you how it is," Scanlon says. "He speaks his mind. It doesn't matter to him what you think. He's gonna tell you what's on his mind and how he feels. Hillary [Clinton] wants to [say], 'Oh I didn't know this... but the government knew I was doing this.' Bullshit. Just admit that you screwed up."
Scanlon has spent 30 years setting up at Super Bowls and World Series games selling merchandise, but this is his first political convention. Scanlon has been following Trump "on his whole tour" selling buttons, hats, t-shirts, and flags. On a good day, he says he can do $1,000 in sales. This week, he's stationed outside the Renaissance Hotel, where delegates from Trump's home state of New York will stay. (He says that privilege will cost him a small cut to the Trump campaign.)
Scanlon's pro-Trump talking points are familiar: Benghazi, welfare, immigration. Clinton, he says under his breath, is a "lying bitch." Does he think Trump is a racist?
"No," Scanlon says. "I've met the man many, many times. If you see his security detail, he has Hispanic[s], he has black[s] in there. He's got 'em all in there. It's just people take it the wrong way.
"I'm not racist or anything," Scanlon adds later, "but the way they're all coming into this country and just taking over. More or less, white people are the minorities now. [The government is] taking care of people here illegally before taking care of us."
As it has been elsewhere, this is the mood of Trump supporters in Cleveland, at least those I've met outside the formal convention: a mix of racism, fear, and a deep-seated hatred of Clinton. Sidewalk sellers like Scanlon are ubiquitous here, all hawking a nearly identical mix of buttons, hats, t-shirts, and flags. Buttons say things like "Hillary's Lies Matter" and "Life's a Bitch. Don't Vote for One." One t-shirt shows a cartoon of Trump and Clinton riding a motorcycle together with Clinton falling off the back and Trump's t-shirt reading, "If you can read this, the bitch fell off."
As Scanlon and I talk at his stand, several hundred protesters pass by, chanting "Black Lives Matter," and a throng of bike cops follows behind them. In that same time, Scanlon does a brisk business—although no one goes for the anti-Clinton gags. He sells two red "Make America Great Again" hats and one big Republican Party flag.