Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
0000017a-3b40-d913-abfe-bf44a4f90000Howard Wilkinson joined the WVXU news team as the politics reporter and columnist in April 2012 , after 30 years of covering local, state and national politics for The Cincinnati Enquirer. On this page, you will find his weekly column, Politically Speaking; the Monday morning political chats with News Director Maryanne Zeleznik and other news coverage by Wilkinson. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Wilkinson has covered every Ohio gubernatorial race since 1974, as well as 16 presidential nominating conventions. Along with politics, Wilkinson also covered the 2001 Cincinnati race riots, the Lucasville prison riot in 1993, the Air Canada plane crash at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in 1983, and the 1997 Ohio River flooding. And, given his passion for baseball, you might even find some stories about the Cincinnati Reds here from time to time.

Speaker Ryan To Ohioans: Get On Board With Trump

ML Schultze
/
Ohio Public Radio
Speaker Paul Ryan speaks to Ohio's delegation.

CLEVELAND – House Speaker Paul Ryan – a Wisconsin Republican who went to college at Miami University – walked into the Ohio delegation breakfast Wednesday morning and told the delegates something they had yet to hear from any breakfast speaker during this convention.

He told them that they have to go out this fall and vote for Donald Trump for president.

"I'm going to leave you with one thing,'' Ryan said as he wrapped up a brief speech to the delegates and guests. "Voting for anybody but Donald Trump means you are voting for Hillary Clinton."

It was one of the rare occasions this week at any Ohio delegation event where the name of the now-official nominee of the Republican party was spoken.

In fact, Wednesday morning, when speaker after speaker went to the podium to kill time until Ryan arrived, no one mentioned the fact that Trump, on the night before, had officially won the GOP nomination in the roll call of the states.

Whether it's the Wisconsin Badgers or the Ohio State Buckeyes, when there is a Big 10 team going to the Rose Bowl, we all get behind the team. That's what we must do now.

Matt Borges, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, told the delegates he was proud to have been the one at Quicken Loans Arena Tuesday night to cast all of Ohio's 66 votes for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Last year, Ryan replaced West Chester's John Boehner as speaker after Boehner resigned, rather than continue to deal with a faction of the GOP House caucus that wanted him out.

Ironically, when Ryan was a freshman at Miami University in 1990, he worked as a campaign volunteer in Boehner's first race for Congress.

Ryan made it clear to the Ohio GOP Wednesday morning that voting for Trump is what they must do.

He compared the primary battle among Trump, Kasich and all the other GOP contenders to the battle for a Big 10 football championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl.

"Whether it's the Wisconsin Badgers or the Ohio State Buckeyes, when there is a Big 10 team going to the Rose Bowl, we all get behind the team,'' Ryan said. "That's what we must do now."

And he left them with a rousing version of the Ohio State Buckeyes chant.

"O-H," Ryan shouted.

The crowd shouted back: "I-O!"

Howard Wilkinson is in his 50th year of covering politics on the local, state and national levels.