Ohio Dems adore Kasich on healthcare even as he mocks them on everything else

Ohio's crusty, petulant and now term-limited governor had yet another softball cameo appearance on national television Sunday, on Meet the Press with host Chuck Todd, where he sounded like a Democrat on health care.

Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich in The
Lincoln Room of the Ohio Statehouse.

At the same time, the former Fox News host got to browbeat and shame President Donald Trump by invoking his favorite Superhero and Master, The Almighty, The Lord!

Kasich told Todd he's just trying to lead the best life he can by lifting people up through divine pathways. A media hound by training, after 40 years of winning impossible-to-lose elections, the easily angered governor who got shellacked two years ago by Trump said he doesn't know what Democrats stand for.

Meanwhile, Democrats, who currently hold no statewide seats in Ohio and who have no legislative clout in Columbus, quote Kasich like he's Moses leading seniors with pre-conditions to the promised land, making him sound as if he's one of their very own lambs, just gone astray, as he did Sunday.

"You can’t be talking about being in a fight here where maybe people could lose their health care if they have a pre-existing condition… these kinds of messages, plus the overall chaos, the chaos here, the chaos overseas. Chuck, people just want the government to do its job to improve the situation for them," Kasich said.

Kasich has cleverly used his acceptance of expanded Medicaid to batter Republicans and Democrats alike. He said while campaigning for the Oval that Obamacare would probably go if he were elected, that for-profit market places are America's solution to its unfair, unjust and immensely complicated health care system, as T. R. Reid eloquently explained in 2010 in his seminal work, "The Healing of America: A Global Quest For Better, Cheaper And Fairer Health Care."

"There's no question that people sent a message to the Party, to Republicans to knock it off; the chaos, the divisions. I mean kids being separated from their parents at the border. These crazy tariffs, and we're gonna take your health care. We're gonna kill Obamacare. Which means you're not gonna have any health care. You know if you have a pre-existing condition, well you know, you might be out of luck," Kasich said on MSNBC.

Trump won the got-to-win Buckeye State over Hillary Clinton by more than eight points. As Kasich heads for the exit come year's end, after eight years of lagging job growth and questionable policies, Ohio's gerrymandered legislative districts--made possible by Kasich in 2011--appear ready to function as the chief tool to elect another Republican chief executive despite so-called Democrat "Blue Wave" enthusiasm.

When Kasich repeats his unbelievable mindset that he doesn't know what Democrats stand for anymore, his ego reveals its history of panning others, especially when his long-held but unworkable ideas--conveniently dubbed "The Ohio Model"--aren't credited or listened to.

Kasich's favorite gambit when asked about whether his presidential aspirations include making a third run at the Oval Office in 2020, is to say he doesn't know what he's going to do tomorrow, let alone two years from now. If his third try to capture today's hearts and minds of primary Trump Republican voters is undertaken without protection of public office, it will be his great loss, one that will extinguish any devine hopes he holds of the Lord lifting him up to be president. 

Trumpism, long in the making, just waiting for the right Trump to come along, has captured the soul of the GOP, leaving old-school politicos and new political bi-sexuals like Kasich to wonder where his next political meal will come from.

In the recent special election between Franklin County Recorder, Democrat Danny O'Connor and Republican State Senator Troy Balderson, to determines who fills the unexpired term of Pat Tiberi--a one-time driver for then Congressman John Kasich--who represented the 12th Congressional District
as long as Kasich did before him, Balderson thanked many people, most especially President Trump. But Balderson didn't mention Kasich's name, even though the two-term governor endorsed him late in the election cycle.

Democrats are so enthralled with Kasich on healthcare that they've lost their voice on assailing him on so many other policies where he hurts or harms workers, teachers, women, seniors and others who the Lord would otherwise want to lift up. 

A cold and grueling assessment of Kasich mocked him as founder of the "Independent Weasel Party." Writing for Ohio GOP blog "3rd Rail Politics," author Scott Pullins reams the Wizard of Westerville on 2nd Amendment rights versus his gun-control plan, then uses Kasich's own reported campaign financing statistics to argue Kasich is dead in the water now and going forward, unless the Lord delivers a miracle.

As Pullins puts it, after declaring Kasich wouldn't run as a Democrat, he only has one extremely narrow path forward, and that path is hooking up with a billionaire running mate.  

"If one of these billionaires would join him on an independent ticket as running mate, Kasich would be free to use their personal funds on the campaign to fund the primary and general election efforts.  And perhaps that’s why he really has weaseled his way towards the left," Pullins speculates on why Kasich drifts leftward, at least in rhetoric. 

The Ohio Democratic Party and its top candidates feel they can't and shouldn't attack Kasich, since they says he's not on the ballot and the so-called "popular governor" polls above 50 percent. ODP hasn't learned what Republicans know, that it's never too early to demonize your opponent. Dredging Ted Strickland up after he's been gone for eight years is a classic example of never let go on a winning narrative, or as some might call it, the "Ohio Model." O'Connor had to fess up on whether he'd vote for the dreaded and much defiled former Democratic House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. The San Francisco liberal won acclaim for guiding the Affordable Care Act through to President Barack Obama's desk in 2010, the year Tea Party fervor got ginned up over it, enough that Kasich saw his opening and used anti-Washington energy to eek out a two-percentage-point win as hurricane winds from the Great Recession had subsided.

Kasich, who claims Democrats have no agenda, won't like what one Republican is calling on other Republicans to do to save The Republican Party. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post by Michael Gerson titled "The only way to save the GOP is to defeat it," the author asks the question of "What should they do" when reality is that President Trump "is a rolling disaster of mendacity, corruption and prejudice."

Gerson's answer is simple: "They should vote Democratic in their House race, no matter who the Democrats put forward." After explaining why the House should flip but the Senate remain in GOP hands, Gerson ends this way: " ... a Republican vote for a Democratic representative will be an act of conscience."

Will Kasich's conscience win out over his inability to say one positive word about Democrats in general or certain office holders in particular, even though they herald him on high for one stand on one issue, that while terribly important isn't the whole ball game.