John Kasich, Nightmare for Partisans
The Editors – Bloomberg View
No Republican candidate has ever reached the White House without winning Ohio. The party’s decision to hold its 2016 convention in Cleveland probably won’t do much to improve its chances in the state, which Barack Obama won twice. But what if the nominee were the state’s popular, pragmatic governor — who grew up in another important state, Pennsylvania, that Republicans would love to put in play?
Kasich has more than geography going for him. He made his name in Washington as a deficit hawk who ultimately helped broker a bipartisan balanced budget agreement in 1997, which helped lead to large surpluses — a feat he has repeated as governor….
Kasich is refreshingly direct, and his willingness to adopt unpopular positions is admirable. Can it sell in a Republican primary? It’s good news for the party, and the country, that Kasich is going to find out.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich announces he is running for the 2016 Republican party’s nomination for president during a campaign rally on July 21, 2015 in Columbus, Ohio. (AP)
John Kasich Throws a Hail Mary
Alex Isenstadt – Politico
John Kasich launched a Hail Mary bid for the presidency on Tuesday, making him the last entrant in the Republican Party’s most crowded field in decades….
Yet as Kasich embarks on his quest for the party’s nomination, he confronts a big challenge: He’s starting late….
Nationally, his decision to embrace a key component of Obamacare — the expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults — could hurt him with conservative voters, who despise the president’s health-care law, and puts him at odds with his primary opponents.
Kasich, though, has a more immediate concern: qualifying for the first Republican primary debate, slated for Aug. 6 in Cleveland. With only the top 10 contenders in national polling making the cut, Kasich, as it currently stands, would be left out — a potentially embarrassing blow given that it will be held in his home state.
Protestors against Ohio Gov. John Kasich gather outside the Ohio State University student union where he is to announce he is running for the 2016 Republican party’’s nomination for president on July 21, 2015 in Columbus. (AP)
The Case for President John Kasich
Ron Christie – The Daily Beast
John Kasich is ready to be president. And I should know: I have known the Ohio governor for nearly 25 years and worked alongside him for more than eight….
Kasich’s raw political talent is formidable. When he was just 26 years old, he shocked the Ohio political establishment by winning election to the State Senate. Four years, later he became the only Republican challenger in the nation to beat a Democratic incumbent in 1982….
While serving in Congress, Kasich, a devoted budget hawk, was always willing to reach across the aisle to work with Democrats to the chagrin of many of his Republican colleagues….
Kasich’s zeal to restore fiscal order would occur once more as he unseated incumbent Governor Ted Strickland in 2010. The governor erased an $8 billion budget shortfall. Kasich’s reforms cut small-business taxes in half, reduced income tax rates by 10 percent, and eliminated the death tax. Simply put, his fiscal record will be the envy of most of the other Republican candidates in the field.