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Beautiful Bluebird Ana Navarro Slams the Screendoor at donald trump for promoting violence - See more at: http://theronnierepublic.blogspot.com/2016/03/beautiful-bluebird-ana-navarro-slams.html#sthash.p8buUSHq.dpuf
Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich speaks at Villanova University in Villanova, Pa., on Wednesday. (Photo: Dominick Reuter/Reuters)
Normally, it wouldn’t be a very big deal for a popular two-term governor to win a presidential primary in his own state, especially if it’s the first of 29 states (and a couple of territories) he’s actually won. But normalcy isn’t even on speaking terms with politics this year, and so it was that John Kasich — after laboring as an afterthought through weeks of primaries and a dozen debates — woke up yesterday to a changed reality.
On the Villanova campus, where I caught up with him, something like 1,000 students jammed into an auditorium and an adjoining overflow room to see Kasich, who often sounded more like a dad than a presidential candidate. (“Here at Villanova, there’s a lot of lonely kids,” he said at one point. “Invite them to go out for pizza. Invite them to the basketball game.”)
Afterward, Kasich wandered into an impenetrable swarm of TV reporters, whose aggressive and overlapping questions — almost entirely about Donald Trump and delegate math — he politely deflected.
Then I followed him out the back door, where his Ohio State Police detail was holding off another sizable throng of onlookers and photographers. We jumped into his black Suburban.
“Do you believe this, Matt?” Kasich said, turning around from the front seat to face me as the car surged forward. “Can you even believe what you saw there today? It’s incredible. Holy cow.”
I had to admit: It was something.
I’d interviewed Kasich on the eve of his announcement last July, and what we’d talked about then was temperament. As a young and ambitious congressman, and even in his early years as governor, Kasich had been known as impulsive and impolitic, quick to offend and quicker to retaliate. He chafed endlessly against the established order of his own party.
The knock on Kasich then was that he could never be disciplined or measured enough to project a presidential stature. Seriously.
Now here he was, the last man standing against Trump and Ted Cruz, the only candidate left with governing gravitas. And more improbably, it seemed the campaign had transformed Kasich himself, or at least the public perception of him.
Somehow, the brash, prickly boy wonder of the Gingrich revolution — a guy still reviled by a lot of his liberal adversaries in Ohio for his evident moral certainty — had been elevated to the position of his party’s designated grownup.
Not only had Kasich managed to contain his famous temper over the last several months, but he had emerged as the most relentlessly upbeat candidate in either party, the favorite Republican of editorial boards and just about every voter who wasn’t planning to vote in Republican primaries.
I asked him if he thought he’d grown into this role during the campaign.
“There has been a big change in me, and that’s that I realized that people need encouragement,” he said. “More than I thought they did. They need to believe in themselves and their ability to change the world. I know that.
“I guess there’s an evolution as I’ve aged, and there’s my family and all that,” Kasich went on. “I’m not a kid anymore, you know? I’m 63 years old. Everybody grows up, I hope.”
But if it’s true that Kasich has mellowed (and I think it is), then it’s also true that his metamorphosis has a lot to do with the contrast he’s drawn. If this year’s Republican field were led by, say, John McCain or Mitt Romney, Kasich would probably seem like a slightly less irascible, less impulsive version of the guy who took the stage on the night of his first gubernatorial election and shouted: “I’m going to be the governor of Ohio!”
But as we and most alien civilizations surely know by now, this year’s field has been dominated by a crass showman who plays with extremist language as if the entire campaign were a Mad Lib. And every overshadowed governing candidate has had to make a decision, at one point or another, about how to remain relevant without losing all dignity.
Jeb Bush vacillated between punchless attacks and plaintive whines. Marco Rubio descended for a pivotal week into Triumph-the-Insult-Dog territory, then regretted it just as quickly. Chris Christie befriended the bully and now seems to occupy the organizational rung just below Trump’s butler.
Alone among his peers, Kasich decided that if this was the last campaign of a long career, he was going to go out his way, with seriousness of purpose. And if espousing pragmatism while ignoring Trump has made him seem, for much of the campaign, like a man oblivious to the moment, it has also earned him broader admiration than all the balanced budgets in the world.
Kasich said this week that he would weigh in soon on Trump’s attitude toward women. I asked him if this signaled that a new, combative phase in his campaign was about to begin.
“I’m going to say things when I feel compelled to say them,” he replied, shaking his head. “More combative? I don’t like the sound of that. I’m not interested in being combative, but every once in a while, when you see something that makes your blood boil, I think you should say something about it.”
Trump’s rhetoric isn’t new, so why had he waited this long to get incensed?
“I had a lot of stuff I didn’t know,” Kasich told me. “You might say, ‘Well, how could you not have known about what was happening at those rallies? How could you not have known about his rhetoric?’ Because I didn’t know. I’m running my own thing.
“And when I’ve seen it,” Kasich continued, “frankly I’ve been stunned by the coarseness. It’s beyond coarse, the insulting and incendiary nature of some of what he has done.”
I couldn’t be sure whether Kasich was really the last American with a television to find out about Trump’s verbal recklessness, or whether he simply couldn’t afford to ignore it anymore. As much as he’s burnished his image by remaining at an Olympian remove, the mathematical fact is that Kasich can’t win without somehow taking Trump down.
Even if Kasich were to consolidate his vote with most of Rubio’s (which is unlikely), it wouldn’t be enough to beat Trump and Cruz in most states, as long as they continue to pile up the kinds of pluralities they did this week. Kasich would have to peel off some sizable segment of voters from both candidates, and even then all he can do is keep Trump from clearing the threshold needed to clinch the nomination.
“I have a unique opportunity, because we’re now gaining momentum,” Kasich told me, shrugging off the obstacles. “What would you rather have, momentum in the first quarter or momentum in the fourth? Cruz didn’t win anything last night. I did.
“And you know what? People across the country are celebrating that victory in Ohio. Because they believe it sends a message that somebody who has a record, somebody who can bring us together — that there’s hope for that yet.
“I don’t see that anybody is going to have enough delegates,” Kasich told me. “And then you have a convention. I mean, why are people hyperventilating about that?”
Kasich’s plan, in other words, is to keep Trump from amassing the 1,237 delegates he needs, and then to effectively declare a reset at the convention. His campaign added a team of serious party insiders this week — among them the superlobbyist Vin Weber and the longtime strategist Charlie Black — to begin preparing for a delegate war.
But as Kasich well knows, the “hyperventilation” in some circles comes from imagining what will happen if Republican operatives try to overturn the will of their own voters. And this is why Kasich needs to do more than simply keep Trump under the magic number; he also needs to win a bunch of states that aren’t his own between now and early June.
In the end, an establishment-led challenge will be viable — or at least something less than suicidal — only if the leaders of various delegations can plausibly make the case that Kasich was the party’s strongest candidate by the time the primaries ended.
If nothing else, there’s little question that he’s now the most electable of the bunch. I asked him if it felt odd, despite his sharply conservative record and evangelical fervor, to have become the Republican Democrats like best.
“I have always been able to attract the independent and conservative Democrats,” Kasich told me as the car came to a stop. “When their party’s turned hard left and they feel left behind, we’ve always had an ability to get those votes.”
We were sitting in the driveway of a country club in Merion, Pa., where Kasich was about to attend a fundraiser. I thanked him for spending a little more time with me on what I knew was a rough day.
At the end of the day this is the look Donald Trump would like to achieve--this is the message he is really trying to send--but when it comes to color, texture, strength, confidence--it might just come down to gene pool. -
Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s big win in his home state keeps him in the Republican race -- and puts him in position to contend seriously in states like neighboring Pennsylvania, where he’s headed next and where he would appear to be well-positioned to challenge both real estate mogul Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
But Kasich has no chance of getting a majority of pledged delegates from the caucuses and primaries, which means his only hope is a contested convention. And it will be difficult for Kasich to walk away from Cleveland with the nomination if, as seems likely, he enters the convention with fewer pledged delegates than either of his rivals. Such is the reality when you don’t win your first contest until the primary campaign is two months old -- and more than half of the delegates have been awarded.
On Tuesday night there were probably some Republican establishment figures -- desperate to stop Trump, highly unenthusiastic about Cruz -- wondering why they didn’t get behind Kasich some time ago. If so, they have only themselves to blame.
Kasich would appear to be a formidable candidate in the general election. He’s highly popular in his home state of Ohio, which happens to be a key swing state. He’s also got an easy, natural way with working-class voters -- and manages to espouse strongly conservative views in a folksy, unpolished way that connotes authenticity and disarms critics.
But except for some former colleagues in the House of Representatives, where Kasich served before becoming Ohio’s governor, even moderates within the GOP establishment were slow to rally behind Kasich -- even after it became apparent that neither former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or Florida Sen. Marco Rubio had a prayer of getting the nomination for themselves.
So what gives?
One possible reason is that Kasich, for all of his conservative positions on issues like abortion and taxes, committed the ultimate act of Republican heresy: He had his state participate in the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid.
Of course, Kasich wasn’t the only Republican to do so -- Arizona’s Jan Brewer and Michigan’s Rick Snyder, among others, did the same thing. But when Republicans in the Ohio legislature and conservatives across the country tried to stop Kasich, Kasich fought back -- making not just the obvious pragmatic argument (that Ohio was better off taking the federal money that went with the expansion) but also a moral argument (that letting poor people suffer and even die from lack of insurance was wrong).
Speaking to reporters in 2013, Kasich said, "Now, when you die and get to the meeting with St. Peter, he’s probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor. You better have a good answer. "
Making matters even worse, Kasich invoked similar logic when he refused to endorse mass deportations. This may have been the only position more toxic in Republican politics than challenging party orthodoxy on Obamacare -- and, once again, Kasich defended it on moral grounds.
"I couldn't even imagine how we would even begin to think about taking a mom or a dad out of a house when they have not committed a crime since they've been here, leaving their children in the house," he said at one Republican debate. "That is not, in my opinion, the kind of values that we believe in."
Kasich's refusal to endorse mass deportations should not have been a profile in courage, and the same goes for his decision to embrace the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion. There’s actually a long history of Republicans working with Washington to implement safety net programs, even when they don’t like the design of those programs. But that was before the party lurched right on immigration and health care, and the party establishment went along.
Today, with Bush and Rubio out of the race, and Trump threatening outright to claim the nomination, more Republican leaders might be willing to overlook Kasich’s heresies -- a few weeks too late to do any good.
‘The country’s watching Ohio’: Primary stakes high for Kasich, Sanders
REQUEST TO BUY THIS PHOTOCHRIS RUSSELL | DISPATCHOhio Gov. John Kasich addresses a rally at Westerville Central High School on Monday evening as his wife, Karen, and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney look on.
By Darrel RowlandThe Columbus Dispatch • Tuesday March 15, 2016 11:16 AM
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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."
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.
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.”
