RNC Notebook, Day Two: Bob Fioretti, Charlie Kirk and cops from Illinois all in town

Here’s a snapshot of news and activities from the second day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

‘Combining messages’ on crime

Perennial candidate Bob Fioretti — who has been running as a Republican since 2022 — is in town for all the RNC festivities this week, believing his tough-on-crime message vibes with Donald Trump’s.

The Tuesday night convention theme was “Make America Safe Once Again.”

“We are combining messages, absolutely,” said Fioretti, who is running for Cook County state’s attorney against Eileen O’Neill Burke, who won the Democratic primary. “We need safe streets, strong communities, and the only way we achieve it is by having order, instead of bedlam and chaos that we’re seeing in our major cities.”

A Republican hasn’t been elected top prosecutor in the county since Jack O’Malley in 1992. But Fioretti — a former Chicago Democratic alderman — said he’s making inroads with the Black community as he campaigns on the South and West sides and South suburbs.

Even with Trump at the top of the ballot?

“I think there’s a new independence happening, that people may split tickets,” he said.

Stage time for Wheeling native

Among the dozens of politicians, celebrities, business people and everyday Americans announced as convention speakers this week, few have a connection to Illinois, where the last time the electorate favored a GOP presidential candidate was in 1988.

But Wheeling native Charlie Kirk — who announced his departure from Illinois to Florida in a Daily Herald guest column in 2019 — took the convention stage Monday night.

Kirk, the 30-year-old head of conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, didn’t talk about his days in the hallways or on the basketball court of Wheeling High School.

But, Kirk quipped to the crowd, he does spend a lot of time on college campuses “so you don’t have to.”

The five-minute speech — mostly about economic issues — was targeted to potential young voters, including “all the Gen Zers watching this convention on TikTok right now,” Kirk said.

‘Makes me sad’

On the convention floor for the first time Monday, delegate Peter Kopsaftis of South Barrington was among members of the Illinois delegation enjoying their first convention.

But upon arrival to the Fiserv Forum earlier in the afternoon, he said the heightened security presence around the stadium was sobering.

Security was expected to be tight going into the RNC, but it probably got even tighter after the attempted assassination of the former president on Saturday.

Spotted among the 4,000 officers in town were dozens of Chicago police and officers with the mutual aid Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System, who manned the security perimeter and vehicle checkpoints in downtown Milwaukee.

“You go to different countries, there’s always military at the airports. I don't want this country to be like this,” said Kopsaftis, the Barrington Township GOP committeeman. “And I don't want anyone — whether you're a Democrat or Republican — to feel that. And that’s the part that makes me sad. And I hope we have reached the crossroads of being together, not against each other.”