New York Times
By Jonathan Martin
August 13, 2015
Gov.
John R. Kasich of Ohio unabashedly promotes his expansion of Medicaid
under Obamacare, shows little appetite for relitigating culture-war
battles like same-sex marriage
and offers not much more than a shrug when asked about Hillary Rodham
Clinton’s turning over her email server to the F.B.I.
“I’m
really more concerned about letting people know who I am, rather than
that much about Hillary,” he said after a town hall-style meeting
Tuesday night, the political
equivalent of letting a batting practice strike go by without a swing.
At
a moment when many of his Republican rivals are vying to criticize
President Obama and Mrs. Clinton most sharply and to position themselves
as the most ideologically
pure candidates in the field, Mr. Kasich is taking the opposite
approach. And it is paying off — at least in this quirky but crucial
state where answers to questions about transportation funding can become
applause lines, “Lake Wobegon” references get knowing
laughs and Republicans can grow animated about their disdain for
negative advertising.
Just
a month after entering the race, Mr. Kasich is rising in the polls in
New Hampshire, winning head-turning endorsements and drawing new voters
to his events who were
impressed with his debate performance last week. And his gains could
have a significant ripple effect on the Republican primary in this state
and beyond, because he is appealing to many of the same voters that
former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Gov. Chris
Christie of New Jersey are targeting.
Mr.
Kasich, whose apostasies include supporting a pathway to legal status
for illegal immigrants and the Common Core education standards, may
never become the Republican
standard-bearer. But for all the speculation about how Mr. Bush’s
difficulties with conservatives could sink him in the primary, the
threat from the left that Mr. Kasich poses could present just as
significant an obstacle to Mr. Bush, who is counting on a
victory in New Hampshire to absorb possible losses in Iowa and South
Carolina, the more conservative of the other early nominating states.
Mr.
Kasich’s potential here is a product of New Hampshire’s unusual nature.
While the moderate wing of the Republican Party is on the verge of
extinction in much of the
country, it endures in a state that is resolutely anti-tax but more
secular than much of the South and Midwest. Further, unaffiliated voters
in New Hampshire can participate in either party’s presidential
primary, a tradition that in the past has elevated
unorthodox Republicans such as Senator John McCain to success.
In
2012, 48 percent of voters in the Republican primary called themselves
moderate or liberal. Even in 2008, when they could have chosen to vote
in the hard-fought Democratic
primary instead, 45 percent of Republican voters described themselves
as moderates or liberals.
“We’re
a lot squishier than most states,” said Charlie Arlinghaus, a
not-so-squishy Republican activist who heads a conservative public
policy group in Concord. “And I
think that’s why Kasich makes a lot of sense here, in a way he doesn’t
in Iowa.”
The
competition for centrist voters is even more significant because it is
uncertain how many of them will be up for grabs in the Republican race.
With Mrs. Clinton facing
a growing challenge from the left from the socialist next door, Senator
Bernie Sanders of Vermont, she may need to corral many moderate,
unenrolled voters into the Democratic primary to try to ensure her
success.
“I
would have said two months ago that our side is going to get 250,000
undeclared voters, because they go where the action is,” said David
Carney, a New Hampshire-based
Republican strategist. “But I don’t know now, because Bernie is making
it a race in New Hampshire.”
Mr.
Kasich leaves little doubt that it is this constituency he is after. He
is focusing his campaign chiefly on New Hampshire and infusing his
speeches with lines aimed
at independents: “The Republican Party, while it’s my vehicle, it has
never been my master and never will be,” he said Tuesday night at a
forum in Peterborough.
But
what he is not saying is just as revealing. During the event, at a
country club in a Democratic-leaning part of the state, he dispatched a
question about whether he
would support legalized abortion in cases of rape, incest and when the
life of the woman is in jeopardy with a single word — “Yes” — cutting
off discussion of an issue that has addled some of his opponents.
And
when reminded, by a voter, of the unexpectedly liberal votes of some
Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices, Mr. Kasich did not name any
cases or justices. He
very briefly explained that he would seek jurists who would interpret
the law, but added, “I’m not a litmus test guy.”
Mr.
Kasich says he is most animated by what he calls “people in the
shadows,” those with mental illness, developmental disabilities and in
at-risk minority communities.
“The miracle of America doesn’t just apply to the few,” he said in
Derry.
But
if his words resemble those of the “compassionate conservative” George
W. Bush of 2000 — perhaps even more than the former president’s younger
brother Jeb — Mr. Kasich’s
tone and style recall the man who soundly defeated Mr. Bush here in
that primary: Mr. McCain.
Mr.
Kasich has a blunt, acerbic sense of humor that can be well-received
among seen-it-all New Englanders. He gently mocks political ritual —
“You can give me polite applause,”
he jokes after opening remarks — and cracks wise about how his wife
just recently let him stop sleeping on the porch, his punishment for
re-entering politics after leaving Congress.
But
he comes dangerously close to crossing the line between cutting and
cruel in a way that could prove dangerous as the campaign wears on.
Asked
about climate change by a young woman in Peterborough, Mr. Kasich
quickly decided his questioner was a plant with an agenda, and could not
resist declaring that
he was on to her.
“You guys are doing a great job getting your talking points out,” he shot back.
Possessed
with ample self-confidence, Mr. Kasich dismisses suggestions that he is
a risk to himself, but some of his supporters recognize the danger.
Jack Flanagan, the
majority leader of the New Hampshire House, said it was the product of
Mr. Kasich’s four decades in politics.
“After
a while you get sort of hardened a little bit,” said Mr. Flanagan,
searching for the right word. “I don’t want to say sarcastic. But he’s
getting better. He deals
with it.”
Mr.
Kasich insists that he is having the time of his life — “I like the
people in America and I’m having a ball traveling around,” he said. But
he spent little time with
voters after his events or establishing personal connections with those
asking questions during them.
After
his Derry town hall, Mr. Kasich appeared in a rush to leave, but he was
only going to a diner next door to tape an interview, then have lunch
with a handful of advisers
and old friends from Congress.
As
he regularly tells audiences, Mr. Kasich grew up outside Pittsburgh,
the son of a mailman. He studied political science at Ohio State, sent a
letter to Richard M. Nixon
in 1970 that earned him a meeting with the president, and later became
the youngest person elected to the Ohio State Senate. At 30, he won a
House seat representing Columbus, and rose to become chairman of the
Budget Committee, where he was an architect of
the 1990s-era balanced budgets.
While
he is only 63, Mr. Kasich’s frame of reference can seem like that of a
man elected to Congress in 1982. This is an asset among some moderates
in New Hampshire as
he presents like a pre-Tea Party Republican. He pines for an era when
Washington worked more effectively, and peppers his remarks with
political references that are about as up-to-date as three-piece suits
(which he also referred to in reaching for a fat-cat
caricature).
But
he is not exactly a moderate. He outright rejected a voter’s idea of
raising the cap on the Social Security tax to pinch higher earners. He
dodged questions about
how he would address climate change and money in politics, both
important issues to many well-educated centrists here.
Yet
nearly $4 million in TV ads here by his “super PAC,” and Mr. Kasich’s
debate performance, have given him an opening in the state. Voters at
his meetings talked repeatedly
of both.
“He
was the only one I thought looked presidential,” said Linda Rutter of
Derry. “He answered the questions, stayed calm and kind of looked like
he could run the country.”
Mr.
Kasich’s advisers know he will face questions on the right — Mr. Carney
said he was polled at home by Kasich supporters, who were testing out
some of the governor’s
vulnerabilities — but the governor seems disinclined to back off his
views.
Pressed
by a voter in Derry about “amnesty for the illegals,” Mr. Kasich said
of undocumented immigrants, “I think that a lot of these people who are
here are some of
the hardest working, God-fearing, family-oriented people you can ever
meet.”
And he ended a brief conversation with reporters with an impassioned statement about his political orientation.
“Hopefully
in the course of all this,” he said, “I’ll be able to change some of
the thinking about what it means to be a conservative.”
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