Showing posts with label MItt Romney. Show all posts

Apr 7, 2016

John Kasich: Suggesting a Nice Photo Shoot--Dogs

Republican or Democrat it is embarrassing for our country that donald trump could be the possible one to win the GOP nomination for something as serious as President of the United States.

It would be nice if someone more or less normal with a good track record comparatively could be going against Hillary Clinton, who I am voting for and one of the main reasons is her support of Planned Parenthood.

Please see the comment of AJG.......

The Republican party seems to be in a state of disarray--why did they not jump behind John Kasich after Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio dropped out. It seems like the GOP cannot make a decision with Mitt Romney winning that race.

Cruz or trump cannot win against Hillary--they are too far out to win in a general election.

The GOP should be backing John Kasich with big ads.

Every day trump steals all of the media attention with his ridiculous comments and CNN falls for it hook, line and sinker.

I guess policy can be a little boring.

Suggesting John Kasich should go for a nice photo-op and some strategic and good attention seeking.

I am suggesting The Human Society and a particular focus on Pit Bulls--those pictures would be hard to beat.

After the Brussels incident, Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said on CNN the only two people running for the highest office to act the part with reasonable statements and plans were John Kasich and Hillary Clinton.

But instead of focusing on who was acting Presidential in light of this tragedy CNN immediately went right back to talking about donald and Cruz and the bickering going on between their wives.

comment........

AJG1 hour ago

This man does not deserve to be Our Governor let alone President of Our United States. As Governor, Mr Kasich has drastically cut funding to many Cities in Ohio causing tremendous hardships on local communities.Mr. Kasich recently signed a Bill passed by Right Wingers of our Legislature that defunded Planned Parenthood. Many, many Poor People in Ohio depended greatly on Planned Parenthood to assist them in making it through Life, on many other things besides abortion.

Shame on Mr. Kasich for making life harder for Cities and Women in Ohio. The man, in my eyes, has no compassion for "The Little Guy" who struggles daily to survive. In my eyes, Mr. Kasich did one thing right. He expanded Medicaid in Ohio after our Right Wing Republican Legislature rejected it. But I believe that if the Affordable Care Act had never provided money to assist the State in expanding Medicaid, which greatly assists "The little Guy" with his or her health issues, Mr. Kasich would have rejected Medicaid Expansion just as 19 of his other fellow Governors have.

from cleveland.com:

Pennsylvania is last-chance state for John Kasich's presidential bid: Brent Larkin

Republican presidential candidate Ohio Gov. John Kasich delivers his State of the State address at the Peoples Bank Theatre in Marietta. (Tony Dejak, Associated Press)

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By Brent Larkin, cleveland.com
on April 07, 2016 at 7:24 AM

CLEVELAND -- Gov. John Kasich is out of excuses.

Anything less than a win or close second in Pennsylvania gives lie to a central tenet of his campaign:

That Kasich's presidential bid will thrive when the primary season arrives in the Midwest and states close to Ohio, places where his moderate views and obvious electability will appeal to voters.

So far it hasn't quite happened that way.

All Kasich's gotten out of states similar to Ohio was a distant third in Illinois and Michigan, followed by a pathetic third Tuesday in Wisconsin.

John Kasich can't believe this election: #Retweet, April 4, 2016 edition

John Kasich: "I'm up 14 points on Hillary in Wisconsin, and I'm going to lose in Wisconsin."

Team Kasich always has some excuse, a reason that almost makes sense.

When the campaign arrives in Pennsylvania on April 26, excuses won't work.

Kasich lives and works in Ohio. But he left a piece of his heart in Pennsylvania.

Soon we'll find out if the people who still live there think as fondly of Kasich as he does of the place where he grew up.

2014: A mailman's son in McKees Rocks dreams of priesthood and politics: John Kasich 5.0

A Northeast Ohio Media Group profile of Ohio Gov. John Kasich as he rebrands himself re-election and perhaps even another run for president in 2016.

If they don't, the chances of Republicans turning to Kasich at a brokered convention in Cleveland will all but evaporate.

Polls consistently confirm Kasich's claim he's a far better general election candidate than Donald Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz.

But that argument is becoming a futile exercise in circular reasoning. Kasich loyalists got the last part right. But all the stuff that comes beforehand has, to date, been a failure.

Like Kasich, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was also considered a great general election candidate. But it has now been more than three weeks since Rubio quit the race, concluding he could never win enough delegates to capture the nomination.

Rubio's exit came on March 15. As of today, he still has 28 more delegates than Kasich.

Already there's a drumbeat of talk that, if convention delegates turn away from Trump and Cruz, party regulars would much prefer House Speaker Paul Ryan over Ohio's governor.

Ryan is more conservative, more likable, and probably more electable than Kasich.

When the campaign arrives in Pennsylvania on April 26, excuses won't work.

But even if Kasich's campaign continues to fall short of expectations, the fact Cruz and Trump want him out of the race is reason for him to stay in it, hoping Republicans in New York and then Pennsylvania appreciate the candidate voters everywhere else have not.

The latest poll out of Pennsylvania was hardly encouraging. A Qunnipiac University survey, concluded April 4, showed Kasich running third in the state of his birth, 15 percentage points behind Trump and six behind Cruz.

Kasich's fond memories of growing up in western Pennsylvania are genuine. Those regular references to his hometown of McKees Rocks aren't timed to coincide with the state's presidential primary. He's been using his "son of a mailman" shtick for years.

But some recent campaign stops in the state haven't gone especially well. And a couple of events included flashes of the unflattering side of Kasich's personality that he's done a decent job of concealing throughout much of the campaign.

During an April 1 town hall meeting in central Pennsylvania, the crowd turned on Kasich when he suggested "teachers are the most underpaid profession in the nation."

It was a curious claim, given that school funding on Kasich's watch has failed to keep pace with inflation. And not once as governor has Kasich attempted to publicly champion higher pay for the country's most "underpaid profession" - even though Ohio has been so awash in cash that Kasich has signed budgetscutting taxes by $5 billion.

Teachers unions in Ohio contribute mightily to the public's negative perception of what is, on balance, a noble profession. But Kasich was right. Teachers generally are underpaid.

But the audience in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, wasn't buying it.

When a nurse complained, "not true governor, not true," Kasich turned testy.

"What do you want, to just eliminate teachers?" he asked. "Come on .... I'm in favor of putting you in charge of your school budgets. If you want to cut teachers pay, that's up to you."

Then came the Kasich compromise: Take some of the millions paid to professional athletes and give it to nurses.

Left unexplained and unanswered was why target athletes and not Wall Street billionaires, or members of any other overpaid profession.

By then, it didn't matter. The crowd in Camp Hill had heard enough. After a couple more prickly responses from the candidate, pennlive.com reported the event ended with some in the room muttering:

"Go back to Ohio."

That's exactly where Kasich doesn't want to be.

At least not until July 18.

Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer's editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.

To reach Brent Larkin: blarkin@cleveland.com

click here to see this page in cleveland.com and more comments:

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/04/last_chance_for_john_kasichs_p.html

Mar 15, 2016

John Kasich: Supported by Mitt Romney, Cats for Kasich and Pitbulls for Peace for the Tone of His Campaign--Col Dis on The Ronnie Re

‘The country’s watching Ohio’: Primary stakes high for Kasich, Sanders

By Darrel RowlandThe Columbus Dispatch • Tuesday March 15, 2016 11:16 AM

NORTH CANTON — Long a presidential battlefield, Ohio may change the course of both the Democratic and Republican White House campaigns in today’s primary.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich is bidding to secure his first win of the 2016 campaign, which the governor says would transform the GOP race. If front-runner Donald Trump takes Ohio — along with his expected victory in Florida — it will end Kasich’s presidential dream and may well cinch the Republican nomination for Trump.

On the Democratic side, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is trying to pull off an Ohio upset like he did last week in Michigan, which would further delay what some still see as the inevitable nomination of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Combined, those four candidates made 18 appearances across Ohio in just the three days leading up to today’s vote.

Kasich cast his ballot this morning at a Genoa Township precinct near his home outside Westerville.

He was asked what he had to say to Trump. “You’re not going to ruin my day after I voted myself for president. I have nothing to say to him,” Kasich replied.

“I just want to be a good guy, helping my country. All I really want to do,” he added at a press conference televised live on CNN.

Trump was watching and lurking on Twitter, posting: "Watching John Kasich being interviewed -- acting so innocent and like such a nice guy. Remember him in second debate, until I put him down."

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Kasich will await election results tonight at Baldwin Wallace College in Berea.

“The country’s watching Ohio. We’re the geographical center in every political election,” Kasich proclaimed in an election-eve speech at Westerville Central High School, a short distance from his home.

Kasich not only made the most Ohio stops in recent days, but he pulled out all the stops, ranging from endorsements from every living Ohio State head football coach to support from the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.

“I came here to make it real clear that all of America is watching what Ohio does,” Romney said at Westerville Central.

“We’ve got to turn out tomorrow and make sure we send a signal loud and clear that a man of integrity, a man with a clear track record, a man that has shown what he can do to turn a state around can do the same thing for the country.”

When the former Massachusetts governor came out strongly against Trump a couple of weeks ago, he urged voters in Ohio and Florida to get behind their home-state candidates, Kasich and Sen. Marco Rubio, who has since faded badly in the polls.

While Romney’s support for Kasich was not billed as an endorsement, he has appeared with no other candidate. And at one point Romney seemed to favorably compare Kasich with the entire rest of the GOP field.

“Unlike the other people running, he has a real track record. He has the kind of record you want in Washington, and that’s why I’m convinced you’re going to do the right thing tomorrow,” he told several hundred people in a cavernous air museum in North Canton.

Kasich said he will win Ohio — and its 66 winner-take-all delegates — and also garner delegates in Illinois and possibly Missouri and North Carolina, which also vote today.

>> John Kasich: Complete coverage of his presidential campaign

>> Voters Guide <<

During a Dispatch interview on his campaign bus rolling down the interstate west of Youngstown, Kasich said the shape of the race already is changing.

“I think if you take the last week, there’s been more attention focused on what I’m trying to do and say than there was in the last year,” he said.

“I think that we can get a lot of delegates going forward. I hope so. So we can go into (the Republican convention in) Cleveland strong and then delegates are going to decide who can run the country. It’s not going to be about insults or wrestling in the mud or one-liners or anything else. It’s not the way conventions work.”

In response to a question, Kasich said he has only now begun challenging Trump’s tactics in campaign rallies that have sometimes turned violent because he wasn’t fully aware of them before.

Staffers told him to turn the TV on Friday night to see the clashes between protesters and supporters outside a canceled Trump rally in Chicago. The staff members later prepared a compilation of incendiary quotes from Trump.

“I’m just calling them as I see ‘em. What I’ve seen, what I’ve been observing, is terrible,” Kasich said.

When asked whether protesters bore any of the responsibility, he answered, “I’ve said that I think that some of the protesters probably went there to disrupt things.”

Kasich said tone is critically important in handling potentially volatile situations, such as reacting to legal decisions exonerating police officers in Cleveland for shooting deaths involving African-Americans, including a 12-year-old.

“If you had somebody out there yelling and screaming and dividing, it would create problems, I have no doubt about it. I have to be very careful about the things I say in the middle of these really hard situations.”

Kasich becomes impatient when repeatedly asked questions about Trump.

“I don’t like what I’ve seen out of that guy, but he’s not going to be the nominee anyway, so let’s move on. It’ll just be a little asterisk. It’ll go down like the — what’s-his-name — the Howard Dean scream.”

The 2016 political circus may not be over yet, Kasich said, “but people are starting to leave the tent.”

drowland@dispatch.com

@darreldrowland

copied from the columbus dispatch

www.dispatch.com

Sep 17, 2015

Numbers Expert Karl Rove Talks The Presidential Debate and Winning The Big Race

By Karl Rove
September 17, 2015

The Real GOP Race Has Barely Started

At this point in 2011, Rick Perry was on top—and three others led without winning, too.

The difficulty with a Thursday column after a Wednesday presidential debate is that the newspaper is put to bed hours before the debate starts. But here are a few observations about the GOP contest that don’t depend on how specific candidates fared in their second face-off.

The race is likely to swirl unpredictably for some time to come. On this day in 2011, Texas Gov. Rick Perry led the presidential field with 29.9% in the Real Clear Politics average of polls. Still in the future were the periods during which Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were each the front-runner. Mitt Romney, the eventual nominee, didn’t grab the lead in the polls for good until Feb. 28, 2012. Several people on stage last night probably moved their numbers—for good or ill—with their debate performances.

Remember, too, that in 2012 the Iowa caucuses were held on Jan. 3. Next year, the caucuses take place on Feb. 1. That makes movement even more likely: 63% of Republicans believe it is too early to make up their minds, according to a Sept. 13 New York Times/CBS News poll.

Conventional wisdom has been that nothing front-runner Donald Trump says hurts him. But there are signs that the contrast between Mr. Trump’s abrasive style and Ben Carson’s soft-spoken demeanor is having an effect. Mr. Trump’s support seems to have topped out, rising only three points, to 27% from 24% in the past two months, according to the New York Times/CBS poll. Perhaps Mr. Trump’s pungent insults are having a cumulative and corrosive effect.

Support for Mr. Carson, meanwhile, rose 17 points, to 23% from 6%. This jump came even though Mr. Carson had a lackluster first debate performance—though his thoughtful closing remarks alone may have caused voters to pay more attention to him.

The danger for Mr. Trump is that his campaign is built around his poll numbers. He obsesses about them in his speeches and gets testy when journalists point out negative ones, like recent Marist/MSNBC/Telemundo poll showing that 70% of Latinos view him negatively. What happens if he loses the lead?

There is also likely to be more volatility as voters become increasingly interested in whether candidates have credible plans to achieve their goals. After the glitter of campaign announcements fades, the time for substance arrives.

If the past is any guide, voters will be increasingly preoccupied with the deeply personal and complex question of whether a candidate is qualified to be president. Especially in the early states, party activists are becoming serious about determining which candidates have the temperament, character and vision to provide effective leadership in the Oval Office.

All of this comes when trust in government is at a historical low. Last year when Gallupasked Americans how much confidence they had in Washington, more than half said “not very much” or “none at all.” Americans are more skeptical of the federal government now than they were even in 2008, during the financial crisis, or in 1976, two years after Watergate. The presidential candidates successful in those years were relatively untested “outsiders”—one-term Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter and then-first-term Sen. Barack Obama.

Fifty-six percent of Americans want the next president to have experience in the political system, while only 40% want someone from outside the political establishment, according to a Sept. 10 Washington Post/ABC poll. Republicans, however, favor an outsider 58% to 36%. They are so infuriated with the political class that they want a candidate who will throw a brick through Washington’s window.

This points to the challenge for Republican hopefuls who have held office: They need to show that they have effectively challenged the political status quo. Having served outside Washington, governors should have an easier time at this than senators.

There will be four more debates—one a month—before the Iowa caucuses, then three debates in February. Until then, the only thing we know for sure is that the race will be determined by how the candidates conduct themselves. That would be true in any political year; it’s triply true in this unusually volatile era, when many of the usual rules don’t apply. The candidates—and all the rest of us—should buckle our seat belts. We’re in for quite a ride.

A version of this article appeared September 18, 2015, in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline The Real GOP Race Has Barely Started and online at WSJ.com.

copied from rove.com

Karl Rove shares his thoughts about the passing of his very beautiful and loved doggie girl:

http://www.rove.com/articles/602