Mike McMullen, of Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, has always made a point of showing his Steeler pride at the GOP’s national gatherings.

So, McMullen didn’t miss a beat when the Pennsylvania delegation to this year’s Republican National Convention was listening to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan express his admiration for Pittsburgh’s football team at breakfast on Monday.

McMullen had a Terrible Towel at the ready.

“I threw it at him,” he said.

That put Ryan, a Wisconsin politician who ran with Mitt Romney on the 2012 Republican ticket, in a bit of an awkward spot. Ryan is a part-owner of the Green Bay Packers.

Even so, he gamely took the challenge and picked up the totem of Steeler fans everywhere.

“I hate to do this,” he said. “I want to win this election so darned bad, I’m willing to do this.”

Then he waved the Terrible Towel above his head.

Afterward, Ryan posed for a photo with McMullen.

McMullen, an alternate delegate, ran without pledging support for any particular candidate, but he said he voted for presumptive nominee Donald Trump and intends to do so at the convention. Trump won the 12th Congressional District, which McMullen represents, in the state’s GOP primary.

Security detail

Initial reviews from delegates suggest that Cleveland police are ready for an influx of convention-goers and protesters.

“Police have done a great job,” said Gale Measel, a GOP delegate from New Castle, on the convention’s opening day Monday. “They are taking security seriously, and you can see it.”

Among the visible precautions, said Measel, was a police officer was on the bus with Pennsylvania delegates as they headed from their hotel to the convention center.

Ticket punched

Cameron Linton, 22, a native of Hermitage, who now lives in Pittsburgh, got himself elected as a delegate to the Republican convention because he correctly calculated that there wouldn’t be much competition for a spot representing his urban congressional district.

Sure enough, only three candidates ran for three spots in the 14th Congressional District. So Linton, a 2016 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, has a place on the convention floor.

“I was not a Trump supporter,” he said, but added that he will vote for Trump because the New York real estate developer won 53 percent of the vote in Linton’s district.

Linton said he’d rather that the Republican Party move in more Libertarian slant.

“That’s not the direction voters wanted to go,” he said.

Still, he added, just being at the convention is exciting.

John Finnerty covers the Pennsylvania Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jfinnerty@cnhi.com