Ohios John Kasich wants to redefine the Republican Party
COLUMBUS, Ohio In an autumn of discomfort for many incumbent governors, Ohios John Kasich is smiling. He is coasting toward a second term in a state that long has been one of the nations presidential battlegrounds, campaigning on policies he believes can put a more empathetic face on the national Republican Party.
His economic philosophy is Republican orthodoxy, drawn from supply-side theory and coupled with a reformist streak. What sets Kasich apart from some others in his party, however, is his willingness to use the levers of government and the zeal with which he has embraced his own version of compassionate conservatism, with strong religious overtones.
As the governor of a pivotal Midwestern state, Kasich is seen by some strategists within his party as a potential presidential candidate in 2016. Whatever his intentions or prospects, he is nonetheless eager to put himself into the competition to reshape a national party that has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections.
My party is me, he said during a lengthy interview recently at the Ohio Governors Residence. I have a right to shape my party. I have a right to have an opinion about what my party ought to be. Whos defining for me what my party is? Im trying to define what I think the party is.
Kasich, who defeated incumbent Democratic governor Ted Strickland in 2010, can look just beyond his borders and see fellow Republican governors struggling in their reelection campaigns. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett is one of the most endangered incumbents in the nation. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker face stiff competition but could survive.
Kasich is in a far more enviable position, with recent polls showing him with a double-digit lead over his Democratic challenger, Cuyahoga County executive Ed FitzGerald. Kasich owes his current political standing in part to what he has done as governor. Perhaps more significant is FitzGeralds late-summer implosion brought on by anemic fundraising, a police report from 2012 that said he had been in a car at 4:30a.m. with a woman who was not his wife, and the later revelation that he had not had a valid drivers license for more than a decade.
Kasich won four years ago by just 2 percentage points. Many recent Ohio gubernatorial elections have not been overly competitive. The high water mark was set in 1994, when then-governor George Voinovich was reelected with 72percent of the vote.
Ohio Democrats have largely given up on the gubernatorial race, but not in their criticism of what they see as the skew in Kasichs record. Hes taken all kinds of steps designed to do one thing: weaken the middle class, to exacerbate the problem of income inequality and benefit his rich friends, said Joe Rugola, director of the Ohio Public School Employee Unit and an international vice president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
But Rugola sees Kasich as politician with presidential ambitions who doesnt always fit the mold of other conservatives. To get there (the presidency), hes going to have to accommodate far-right funders like the Koch brothers and [Sheldon] Adelson, Rugola said. I dont think hes abandoned his far-right principles, but I think hes a smarter politician than a Scott Walker. Theres nothing wind-up, right-wing ideologue about John Kasich. In that regard hes pretty smart about how he does this.
If Kasich were to run in 2016, he would likely face some serious obstacles, in part because he has not spent the past year getting ready to run. GOP strategists suggest he would enter as a candidate at the top of the fields second tier, as neither a purely establishment nor purely tea party candidate. He would carry baggage among conservatives for having expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act but could point to success in Ohio as a sign of how he might do in general election battlegrounds.
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Ohios John Kasich wants to redefine the Republican Party