A reporter for the Cleveland Plains Dealer wanted to talk to me after the Bernie Moreno rally at Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester, Ohio, on February 28th, 2024.  It was an unusual rally in that Vivek Ramaswamy, Donald Trump Jr., and Kimberly Guilfoyle came with Bernie to support a President Trump endorsement ahead of the March primaries; these were all national figures campaigning for the second senate seat and had the full backing of J.D. Vance.  The reporter wanted to know when I knew I wanted to support Bernie Moreno instead of the two other guys, Frank LaRose and Matt Dolan, and I told him it was late August into September.  I said that Frank had screwed up the election in August for Issue 1, and that was going to hang around his neck for a long time because of what it cost us in Ohio, incredibly loose abortion laws from radical progressive outsiders, and the legalization of pot.  And with Matt Dolan, who owns the Cleveland Indians baseball team and allowed himself to be arm-twisted into changing the name to the Guardians, he was simply too soft.  If that’s all he could do to resist the woke mob of lefties who have taken over our government, then he would be no good as a senator.  As Don Jr pointed out during the Moreno rally, a sports team is a little thing that doesn’t matter much to people in the grand scheme.  If Dolan fell short of courage for that little issue, what would he do in the SWAMP, where things mattered quite a lot and the pressure was much more intense?  As I told the reporter, I know both Frank LaRose and Matt Dolan, and they would be nice, typical politicians under normal circumstances.  But they aren’t the kind of fighters needed these days, where we need MAGA Republicans to fit the Trump agenda once President Trump is back in office, and out of them all, only Bernie Moreno fits the need.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet Bernie Moreno several times now, including the private lunch we had back in September, and for me, it’s not even a question.  He is the right guy to go up against Sherrod Brown, which continued my reasoning to the reporter.  It’s not enough to win the Republican primary; once Trump endorses someone in the Republican Party, it seals it for whoever that is.  But to get elected into the Senate will be a brutal campaign against Brown, who is deeply entrenched, and it will take someone as likable as Moreno to pull it off.  Even with the Trump endorsement, it will be a steep haul, and the other guys have too much baggage.  They have brand damage that Brown will easily exploit in a general election, so it comes down to who can beat Sherrod Brown.  And Bernie is that person.  I knew it when I first met him, and now, in West Chester, Ohio, with the coveted Trump endorsement behind him and compelling personalities campaigning with him, it is pretty clear what the path forward is.  Ohio deserves some of the best possible senators we could get, and J.D. Vance has picked his partner in the act. Our task is to give him the tools he needs to succeed.  So, the picture was becoming quite clear at the Lori’s Roadhouse rally.  It was a packed venue for an afternoon event in the middle of the work week.  After the rally, everyone went up to a fundraiser at Wetherington, and the Republican Party was unifying behind a clear strategy, and it was great to see. 

Seeing so many culminating aspects come together that I have watched uniquely over the last few years was very satisfying.  I enjoyed watching Vivek speak, Don Jr, Kimberly, and, of course, Bernie.  Don Jr. is such a good guy, especially in person.  I had some people with me, and Don signed the wallet of one of them, to have such a down-to-earth guy, the firstborn son of an ostentatious billionaire, is a real treasure.  Don Jr. balances celebrity with practicality amazingly well, and he’s funny.  I’ve seen him in person many times now, and he is always a fine line between comedy and serious political commentary.  And, of course, with Vivek Ramaswamy, I remember being invited to an event with him in Middletown where he essentially launched his political career.  The fabulous Nancy Nix was in front of me during the rally, proudly watching the events on stage at Lori’s, almost like a proud mother.  Many people don’t know it, but she has her hand in most of these things in Butler County.   She put Vivek and I together in a meeting ahead of the release of his book Woke, Inc., which I think will be the economic platform for American policy over the next ten years.  I felt it when I first read it, and I am very sure of it now, and Nancy knows it, too.  She was also very important to the launching of J.D. Vance, which I wasn’t convinced of initially.  But Nancy understood these personalities very well and worked hard behind the curtain to ensure everything worked and the right people got into the right jobs and met the right people along the way.

I only mention Nancy because as I have come to know some of these people, and this is what I was thinking about while talking to the reporter for the Cleveland newspaper, there is some real magic going on with these events that defy conventional political thinking, and my articulation of the point struck the reporter.  These were not typical political considerations but a fight between the life and death of a country and the world’s economy.  And none of these people, including me, needed to do any of this stuff.  All the people traveling with Bernie are rich and powerful.  They don’t need to be in politics.  And I’ve been involved in Butler County politics in Ohio most of my life, and there aren’t that many good people like Nancy Nix who are not in love with name-dropping and power playing, who just do good things because they want to do good things.  There aren’t enough good people in the world doing good things for good reasons.  That includes Greg and Lori, who run Lori’s Roadhouse, they didn’t need to do what they were doing to support these kinds of events.  As I looked around the room at all the people present, Jim and Lee Redkey were standing next to me, T. C Rogers too, and Michael Ryan, along with many others who could have been doing a million other things with their time.  But they were there to support people who were going to great measure to do the right things for our country.  And it was wonderful to witness.  When you start to see the hidden hand of righteousness working over time toward a grand fortissimo of justice and history playing out before our eyes, it’s a magnificent spectacle that doesn’t quite fit the description in a typical newspaper commentary on politics.  It’s simple yet infinitely complex, as so many moving pieces starting many years ago have moved toward this moment as a destiny seeking to be fulfilled.  And so many people played their part, least not the people on the stage supporting Bernie Moreno.  A promise of great things yet to come because people who define greatness purely, not for the recognition they might get or the financial resources that follow, but because it was the right thing to do is a hope for a future that nobody has yet witnessed in the history of the world.  And it was at Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester, Ohio, on an unusually warm day and a political onslaught yet to come that greatness peaked its head out for all to see.

Rich Hoffman

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