Wall Street ties might hamstring GOP hopeful Kasich

NNot so long ago, a job with Lehman Brothers opened doors. Now, it threatens to slam one on the leading Republican contender for governor in 2010.

John R. Kasich, the former congressman from Westerville, left the storied investment banking firm shortly after it collapsed in September, severing a six-year relationship as a managing director of Lehman's investment banking division.

As Kasich prepares to challenge Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, his association with a firm that has come to symbolize the avarice of Wall Street almost certainly will be used against him.

"If he becomes a candidate for governor, I'm sure that will be part of the discussion, as will the way I've handled my job," Strickland said. "I don't know how engaged he was, what his responsibilities were. Would that likely be something I would look into if he were my opponent? I think that it's likely that it would."

Since leaving Congress in 2001, Kasich has turned his political and television-news star power into a lucrative private career. But he is hankering for a return to public office, and for more than a year he has been wooing Ohio Republicans for an expected gubernatorial bid in two years.

Kasich has strong voter appeal in these troubled economic times. As chairman of the House Budget Committee during the 1990s, he earned a reputation by overseeing the first balanced federal budget in decades.

“So when Mr. Fuld made him an offer to come to Lehman
Brothers, he jumped. “Fuld is an awesome guy,” Mr. Kasich enthuses. “He is the kind of guy you want to go into battle with. He is a great leader. I like
people who are really smart and who are great leaders.”
It’s been remarked often that Mr. Kasich’s bouncy, almost
childlike enthusiasms-he was thrown off the stage at a Grateful Dead Concert,
and he and his close friend Gary Condit once jumped into a mosh pit at a Pearl
Jam concert-have been something of a double-edged sword for his political
career. It gave him a nice common touch (he never lost an election), but when
it came time to take his act to the national level, the pundits begin calling
for more gravitas.

Mr. Kasich snorts. “The issue was money-M-O-N-E-Y. If I’d
had more of that, I would have had all the gravitas”-he fairly spits out the
word-”in the world. And you know what? If you look ‘gravitas’ up in the
dictionary, it doesn’t exist.”
It does, actually, but no matter: Gravitas has never been a
prerequisite for investment-banking success. In the true spirit of the master
legislator he once was, Mr. Kasich talks much of relationships, teamwork and
the symphonious merging of the two.

Already, he says, his friendship with venture-capital bigwig
Mark Kvamme at Sequoia Capital has helped Lehman Brothers’ private-equity team
get into a few early-stage portfolio investments. But more than anything, Mr.
Kasich just wants to be one of the guys. “Wh....

(http://www.observer.com/node/44953)

let me get this straight....the idiots of America just elected the 2nd most bribed senator ever from wall street tycoons and Dodd sits as the MOST bribed senator from wall street yet a Pub can be hamstrung?......

Hitlery and her hubby can take millions from foreign countries and yet there are no questions about the ethics of such an arraingment?

barry can select only certain people to "ask" questions and no one wonders about our "free" press?

it hasn't even started yet and already I am hating every single thing about the barry party....

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