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Gov. John Kasich at his 2013 State
of the State event, with Senate President
Keith Fabor (left) and House Speaker Bill
Batchelder (right)
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Recall Kasich's quirky move that reflected his spoiled and selfish nature when he refused to welcome the thousands of Republicans who arrived in Cleveland in 2016 for the party's national convention. The GOP holding its national event in Cleveland was big news. It was so big that even Cleveland's Democratic mayor showed up to welcome a sea of ruby-red Republicans to his once great but now hard-bitten city.
By convention time, Trump had felled all his challengers, including Kasich, who despite being the last one to leave the race was among the first to get thoroughly trounced. That first big loss came when Ohio's 69th leader got thumbed bigly in his favorite state, New Hampshire. He came in a very distant second to Trump, then started bottom feeding in one primary or caucus after another, with the exception of Ohio, where his lone win looked lonelier because he couldn't break the 50 percent mark at home.
DeWine, whose long career in politics stretches from a humble county office to the statehouse to Congress, will reach its natural apotheosis should he be victorious in November against Democratic candidate Richard Cordray. DeWine blasted Kasich's two-term running mate, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, by easy double-digits on May 8th. Kasich endorsed Taylor, who promptly hide that endorsement as much as she could, distancing from her boss by promising to undue Kasich's signature legislative accomplishment: expanding Medicaid under Obamacare. Even though DeWine got on board Kasich's second presidential train like all other GOP Ohioans did, he never mentioned Kasich's name during his so-called spirited (and very nasty) campaign to beat Taylor, where mud was slung by the ton by each candidate, as each tried to out-Trump the other.
At odds with President Donald Trump from the beginning of GOP debates in 2015 to this day, Kasich seems lost by design in his lonely world where if the story isn't about him he's not interested. Spending more time out of Ohio than in it these days, Kasich relishes earning local and national coverage by repeating the common wisdom, backed up by what many polls show: political parties are further apart today than ever, and candidates are at polar opposites. Kasich says he can break the spell of gridlock in Washington, where he served for 18 years in the House before abandoning his cozy seat to run first losing campaign for the White House. Now that Trump World gets up everyday with its goal to undue something former President Obama put in place, Kasich has become politically bi-sexual, talking smack about Republicans and Democrats that only makes him even more distrusted by the warring factions.
The National Chaplain is clearly fishing for his post-governor job. That job might well come from CNN, the network he's a regular on Sunday talk shows like State of the Union with host Jake Tapper that Trump calls the fake news network. CNN employs an army of people who get paid to speak about issues of the day. If Trump's first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, can get paid hundreds of thousands, surely a honed and crafted career politico like Kasich can have a big payday. He'll be called governor and speak like he's tackled all the problems any governor can handle, when he of course has done little to nothing to make Ohio great again.
CNN can keep his boat afloat for a couple more years as 2020 approaches, and Kasich can play hide-and-seek about whether he'll try a third time to win the White House. America so far hasn't wanted him to be Commander-in-Chief after two tries, so time will tell whether he finds another hobby job to do after he leaves public office at the end of the year.
It wasn't all that long ago that John Kasich hosted his own TV talk show on the Fox News channel. During his TV days, he often substituted for now disgraced "No Spin Zone" womanizer Bill O'Reilly. Having mastered the art of political talk over decades in Congress, Kasich is a glib governor whose daily discourse is both confusing and funny at the same time. On any given day, who knows whether he'll be anti-Republican or anti-Trump or wonder what Democrats stand for? He'll parlay his governorship into a lecture on how to address the problems of the world, when his record at home in Ohio is less than stellar. Grabbing a headline by saying something bombastic is basic Kasich.
Between now and Election Day, watch what Kasich does with respect to Ohio and national elections. Will his record be a factor going forward for DeWine or Cordray? Democrats have virtually sainted Kasich for doing an end-around run of the legislature to bring expanded Medicaid to Ohio. Democrats say they don't attack Kasich because he's not on the ballot and his popularity is above 50 percent. His high ratings, for Democrats who haven't thought about it much, is due in large part because they've taken a hands-off approach, letting his myths become fact.
When a sitting Democratic senator running for a third term says he salutes Kasich for expanded Medicaid, the party knows it has lost a war that it could have won had it just done what Republicans do so well: dredge up long past Democrats as scary figures voters shouldn't install in office again. Former Gov. Ted Strickland, who served one term starting in 2006, has been demonize time and time again by Kasich and cohorts. Strickland will be demonized again in 2018.
On the bright side, if Kasich panders enough to CNN officials, maybe he'll get another chance to talk to America on a regular basis if the network hands him another "Heartland" show opportunity.
The sad fact is that Kasich has been a terrible governor, stealing billions from schools and city's, passing laws harmful to women, signing bills that suppress democracy and voter turnout while being intentionally blind to scandals involving billions for for-profit charter schools and not creating enough jobs for Ohioans who want them.
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