Posted on 11/10/2014 8:21:56 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Supporters of Ohio governor John Kasich held signs at last Tuesdays victory party memorializing his vanquished Democratic opponents: Ted Strickland, in 2010; Ed Fitzgerald, in 2014. And then a third name, as yet unchallenged: Hillary Clinton.
Those signs would have looked ridiculous in 2011, when Kasichs attempt to reform the states collective-bargaining agreements ended in a citizens veto of the legislation in a statewide referendum and gave the Democratic party an off-year tune-up ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
Now, you dont have to be a Kasich Crazy to think he has a chance at the Republican nomination in 2016. Chuck Todd, host of NBCs Meet the Press, said the GOP donor class favors him. I think the money likes Kasich, Todd told Hugh Hewitt on Friday. The Kasich résumé is the perfect gubernatorial résumé.
Thats the kind of praise that Kasich never received when he ran for president in 1999. Then a House budget hawk, Kasich tried to combine an idiosyncratic demeanor (he described himself as Jolt Cola in a field full of Pepsi and Coke) with a campaign platform that he hoped voters would perceive as both compassionate and conservative. It didnt take long for Texas governor George W. Bush to back a Brinks truck full of money over that plan; Kasich dropped out in July of that year.
Fifteen years later, its Kasich who has crushed a political upstart. The Ohio governor defeated his hapless Democratic challenger, Ed Fitzgerald, 6231. Kasich won 86 of Ohios 88 counties, including Cuyahoga County, where, in 2012, Cleveland voters gave President Obama a 40-point win over Mitt Romney. In a pivotal state, maybe the pivotal state, he won a crushing victory, and thats noticed throughout the Republican party, former Minnesota congressman Vin Weber tells National Review Online.
Kasichs victory was as overwhelming as his defeat had been in 2011, when 61 percent of Ohioans voted to repeal the collective-bargaining reforms hed signed into law and his approval rating languished in the 30s. His background at Lehman Brothers made it easy for Democrats to portray the law, which affected police and firefighters, as an act of war on the working class and a danger to public safety.
He realized that it was time to move on to other issues, and I think he did it very strongly, says former Ohio house speaker JoAnn Davidson, a longtime Kasich ally.
Kasich returned to the theme that helped him shake the Wall Street fat-cat image during his campaign: jobs and the economy. He cut taxes, balanced the budget from the $8 billion shortfall that Strickland left behind, filled the states rainy-day fund, launched a new job-creation initiative, and streamlined the state governments 77 job-training programs. From 2011 to 2014, the Ohio unemployment rate beat the national average as the states businesses created a quarter of a million jobs. Kasich also signed prison-sentencing reform into law and quadrupled the size of the school-choice program.
That record, combined with the failures of the Democratic nominee Ed Fitzgerald is the equivalent of the national Democrats running Michael Dukakis, according to one Ohio political observer ensured Kasichs reelection this year.
Most controversially, he implemented through executive action the Medicaid expansion offered by the federal government as a provision of Obamacare. It was important because it said to some people that Kasich is not just a one-size-fits-all ideological conservative, said GOP strategist Terry Casey, a longtime friend of the governors.
The Medicaid expansion angered conservative voters who had rallied behind Kasich in 2010, when he declared that he was in the Tea Party before there was a Tea Party, but the move shouldnt surprise anyone who remembers his presidential campaign. Its okay to stand up and tell people in your party that theyre too mean, Kasich said on the campaign trail in 1999.
When you die and get to the meeting with St. Peter, hes probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small, but hes going to ask you what you did for the poor, Kasich likes to say today, to the irritation of Obamacare opponents.
The Republican-controlled legislature tried to withhold funds for the expansion the Good Samaritan was not funded by taxpayers, state house Finance and Appropriations Committee chairman Ron Amstutz tells NRO but Kasich used a small panel of lawmakers to circumvent the full body.
I believe when you do better you need to reach out to people who live in the shadows and give them a bridge so they can participate in the economic promise of America, Kasich said on Fox News in defense of his actions.
The Medicaid expansion had political benefits, too. It played especially well with Democrats and the kind of blue-collar independents who stayed home when Romney challenged Obama. He can better understand certain parts of Ohio than most country-club Republicans could, Casey said of the governor, a mailmans son.
Though his resounding victory opens the door to a presidential bid, Kasich faces plenty of obstacles.
For one thing, Republican voters have no shortage of blue-state, Medicaid-expanding Republican governors to choose from in the upcoming presidential cycle. In the Midwest, Indianas Mike Pence, another former congressman, has foreign-policy chops and a stronger relationship with social conservatives. Michigan governor Rick Snyder has received less presidential buzz, but he has a similar economic-turnaround story to tell.
And of course, Wisconsins Scott Walker looms over the regions governors. He didnt expand Medicaid, and, unlike Kasich, he cemented his tea-party credibility by beating the unions in a series of showdowns over collective-bargaining reforms.
There are some people that are first to land on the beach, and sometimes those are the people that get to the promised land first, and sometimes those are the people who get shot up and chewed up, Casey says, when he surveys the field. So, there are different ways to get to the promised land, if thats where you want to get.
The odds of Kasich emerging as the nominee from the second wave of the campaign are diminished by his past struggles raising money. Either I solve the realistic problems that dogged me in the last campaign essentially, the lack of a national financial base or I wont run, he said in 2002.
Chuck Todds confidence notwithstanding, Kasichs allies sound uncertain that he has solved that problem. True, he stockpiled about $20 million for his 2014 campaign. But that haul was facilitated by Ohios campaign-finance laws, which have higher donation caps for governors than presidential candidates enjoy. Kasich was also boosted by George W. Bushs 2000 campaign-finance chairman, Mercer Reynolds, and other Bush donors who live in the Cleveland area. If Jeb Bush runs, it makes it tougher to reach some of the money people that a Kasich might want and need to have, Casey says.
As Kasichs presidential profile grows, hes likely to take fire from his right flank, even before the campaign gets underway. By pushing for repeal of Obamacare, Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio can keep the issue alive and damaging to Kasich.
President Obama will veto the repeal, and Senate Democrats will filibuster most other Republican initiatives, though, so Kasich will have an opportunity to run against an ineffective Congress. If youre not there to do something, I dont know what the heck youd be there for, he said Thursday in a potential preview of that attack.
Kasich won reelection by marrying George W. Bushs compassionate conservatism to John McCains maverick image, but some political observers worry that he combines Joe Bidens political instincts with Chris Christies occasionally off-putting brusqueness. Kasich has a history of making gaffes that end up not being endearing, said one person who has followed the governor closely. For instance, he had to apologize after calling a police officer an idiot multiple times while describing a years-old traffic stop.
That constellation of counterarguments has Kasichs in-state critics suggesting he has a better shot at the vice-presidential nomination than at the top of the ticket; the Dayton Tea Party, for instance, assumes Kasich aspires to have the Republican nominee view him as the logical choice for a running mate.
Davidson and state representative Amstutz promise that Kasich has the political ability to run for any office he wants. He does have things that he has a lot of passion about and hell wind them in, Amstutz allows, calling the governor a real person.
Whatever Kasich decides about a presidential bid, he now faces a crucial six months. He must pass the states biennual budget, which means another fight with the state legislature about funding the Medicaid expansion. That will only position him further to the left in the Republican presidential field.
When he first came in and kind of started laying out his plans, I think some people might have thought he was being too aggressive, Ohio senate majority leader Tom Patton, a Republican, said last week. And now, some of the people from his own party might think hes not aggressive enough read into that not conservative enough.
Joel Gehrke is a political reporter for National Review Online.
His idea is akin to Jack Kemp - build a bridge to poor and blue collar voters Republicans don’t normally don’t court.
If you’re a Republican you can combine fiscal conservatism with compassion for the downtrodden. And you don’t need to come across looking like a guy who doesn’t understand how ordinary Americans live.
Kasich has shown social compassion isn’t an exclusive preserve of liberals and Democrats.
You “don’t see it that way” and then describe it as that way.
You don’t need Medicare or Medicaid to expand medical jobsin fact, they cause fewer medical jobs.
Anything “free” in terms of education is at the taxpayers’ expense. Unions will get into the tech sector if they have fewer teachers to sign up. Putting teachers out of a job is good?
Believing in “luck” is quite anti-Christian, too.
Nominate Kasich and lose OH again in 2016.
Adopting the strategies and policies of the left means you are the left.
Not yur friend on guns. Rules it out for me.
Who is “we”? The GOP establishment is not “we”.
RE: Not yur friend on guns. Rules it out for me.
What exactly did he do?
His impressive reelection win though won’t impact a presidential race, even in OH, in my opinion. Except for Romney and Dewey in 1944, haven’t all the GOp candidates won their home states? Even Ford took MI in 1976.
The point is showing Republicans are on the side of the little guy is both smart policy - and good politics.
People perceive conservatives as folks who fight for bailouts for big banks and oil companies and who cynically support the worst corporate welfare - taxpayer subsidies for people who don’t need them.
That’s hurt the GOP brand. And in a country with changing demographics, you’re not gonna win an election if you come across looking as mean and scowling. It doesn’t hurt conservatives to appear warm and caring and show they have ideas to help Middle Americans.
Obama wants the government to run their lives. Republicans want to help them to run their lives. That’s the difference between the liberal and conservative view of the human condition.
Like I said before. I am not going to speculate right now whether or not Kasich will toss his hat into the ring. Way too early for that-—although I have heard rumors that Ohio Sen. Rob Portman is also seriously considering running which would almost certainly complicate a theoretical Kasich presidential bid.
As a native Ohioan very familiar with that state’s politics, I was stunned and amazed at the sheer depth of Kasich’s victory there last week carrying all of the states heavily urbanized counties.
We Republicans have been told for years we cannot compete in urban areas. This is really my main point.
Believing in luck is anti-Christian, too
So what do you want to call it? The will of God working in unexpected ways?
Another fringe benefit is it puts sneaky Portman out of the picture, hopefully. Kasich is much more of an average guy, much more in touch with the problems real people face. Is he perfect? Far from it. But his campaign did not nod to elitist Chamber of Commerce type interests to win. He ran as a job creator who wants to bring manufacturing back, improve lives, and stay in touch with his rather humble background.
Joe should stick to writing about the wonderful life of gays and not try to tell conservatives, whom to consider for public office.
More GOP-e talking points. That “people perceive” nonsense did not bear out in this recent election, remember.
It was RINOs that fought for bailouts for big banks and oil companiesjust like the Democrats have done. RINOs have hurt the conservatives, not the “brand”.
Its possible to cut taxes and spending and still appear like you care about people.
Isn’t that the essence of human appeal? No one wants an accountant.
Every one wants someone who understands you and who knows that your life is like that of most people - its hard, its rewarding and you take care of yourself... and occasionally, you need a little help to make the most of it.
You’re using liberal talking points again. Medicaid expansion means fewer hospitals (because they are ordered to consolidate), fewer jobs in the medical profession, fewer patients treated and less revenuebut it sure does mean bigger bureaucracy.
As for “luck”, given Kasich’s liberal bent, I would refer you to Isaiah 3:4.
The Republican Party won’t win as a country club and Chamber Of Commerce Party.
Mitt Romney’s wealthy background hurt him more than it helped.
I just can’t see John Kasich running for the presidency not with his support to Obamacare (which is not nationally accepted / nor excused by most / he would have to address that), and I surely don’t ever think the same of John Kasich and Joe Biden whatsoever because Kasich is intelligent. Biden is a airhead and does exactly (well, not always) what he is told by whoever is managing Obama. And, why people are scared of Biden is a mystery to me (if Obama were to be impeached).
I don't think Kasich is at heart a liberal. Governing Ohio is like herding cats; it doesn't even behave as one state. Kasich has done far better than a Dem ever would. It seems a lot of things he does are what is best for OH.
His big flaw is that the budget was balanced and any tax cuts starved communities of much needed revenue. So what did the dems do? Choose Fitzgerald, who as Cuyahoga County head siphoned money to things like a $5 million scoreboard for the Browns and overblown construction projects. They couldn't have picked anyone worse to run against Kasich's biggest vulnerability.
Kasichs victory was as overwhelming as his defeat had been in 2011, when 61 percent of Ohioans voted to repeal the collective-bargaining reforms hed signed into law and his approval rating languished in the 30s. His background at Lehman Brothers made it easy for Democrats to portray the law, which affected police and firefighters, as an act of war on the working class and a danger to public safety.
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