Ohio Governor John Kasich, the GOP’s ‘Great White Hope’??
After finishing a long distant second in the New Hampshire primary, Ohio Governor John Kasich’s plan to be the GOP’s ‘Great White Hope’ seems to be moving along. Now it seems the media is finally looking more closely at Kasich’s record in Ohio. We’ve been screaming about his lies ever since he joined the race for President.
Moments after he placed second in the New Hampshire primary, John Kasich was transformed from a low-profile, under-the-radar candidate to the new face of compassionate conservatism in America.
Here, apparently, was the moderate Republican antidote to the domineering Donald Trump, a governor with a record of achievement, willing to rise above the fearful invective on immigration to campaign in an optimistic way about the future of the United States.
“If you don’t have a seatbelt, go get one,” the 63-year-old almost yelled as he told an enthusiastic meeting of independents and Republican centrists. “Tonight the light overcame the darkness.”
But behind the unassuming image is a track record in his home state of Ohio, where he is a second-term governor, that puts him a big step to the right of what many Americans would consider moderate.
John Kasich has been billed as moderate candidate, but his record is anything but
The Guardian article has a great summary of how NOT to be a moderate. The latest being Kasich plans to sign his 18th law, since taking office, that restricts abortion rights in the state. It is a law to defund Planned Parenthood that his office helped write.
He supported the effort in 2011 to take away union rights of public employees that became known as SB5. It was repealed by public referendum and since then, when he has wanted to stick it to a segment of the Ohio population – like women – he uses the budget to do it so it can’t be changed by referendum.
The Plunderbund blog as more details on how bad Kasich has been for Ohio.
Kasich also has a well known anger problem:
John Kasich has a resume seemingly tailor-made for a serious run for the Republican nomination: blue-collar upbringing, congressional budget hawk, Fox News commentator, investment banker, successful two-term governor of Ohio.
But there’s just one problem, according to interviews with dozens of those who’ve worked in politics alongside him at various points over the past several decades: his short fuse.
There was the friend who excitedly called Kasich to tell him he was about to announce a campaign for statewide office, only to get a letdown of a reply: “How stupid are you?”
There was the wealthy conservative donor he raised his voice to during a Koch brothers-sponsored conference, prompting a walkout.
There was the BP employee who, in the middle of a meeting, found himself the target of Kasich’s derision. “You know why oil and gas companies have a bad reputation?” the governor barked at him. “Because they deserve it.”
There was the professor who wrote Kasich, then a young state senator, a letter of complaint about his education policies. “When you learn to write a civil letter,” the brash lawmaker fired back, “I will respond accordingly.”
There is also the well known time he lashed out a police officer during a traffic stop and refused to even look at his last election opponent when they were being interviewed in the same room. That made him look so bad the campaign forced the newspaper, who filmed the interview, to remove it from their website.
I can see Kasich’s game plan. He wants to be the “moderate” compromise when the GOP establishment decide to blow up the summer convention rather than let Trump or Cruz be the face of the party in November. That game plan seems to be gaining traction now that the political pundits are writing off Senator Marco Rubio after New Hampshire.
The only thing that could ruin Kasich’s plan is if former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg enters the Presidential race. It will be really bad for Kaisch and the GOP unless Bloomberg runs as a Republican, which isn’t likely.
John Kasich spent several months exclusively campaigning in New Hampshire and he was still beat 2 to 1 by Donald Trump. Kasich doesn’t have months to campaign in the other primary states because there isn’t that kind of time left. I doubt he gets close enough to Trump or Cruz to make a deadlocked convention even a possibility in the fevered dreams of the GOP leadership.
To be sure Kasich has been terrible for Ohio and any thought he is a ‘moderate’ totally scrambles the meaning of the word.
