Ohio Gov. John Kasich announces he is running for the 2016 Republican partys nomination for president during a campaign rally at Ohio State University, Tuesday, July 21, 2015, in Columbus, Ohio.
Advertisement
Kasich rekindled the crowd’s affections for Ronald Reagan and referenced the fact that he ran Reagan’s Ohio campaign in 1976, when Kasich was only 24 years old. “And I have to tell you, it’s a daunting challenge”.
But unions, which turned back an effort by Kasich and fellow Republicans to limit public workers’ collective bargaining rights, say Kasich’s successes have come at a cost to local governments and schools, and that new Ohio jobs lack the pay and benefits of the ones they replaced.
The governor also touched on the importance of his Christian faith in guiding his decisions, saying “I am just a flawed man trying to honor God’s blessing”.
Kasich is among the very last candidates to officially join the race for the GOP presidential nomination.
His opponents in the Republican field and the leading Democratic presidential candidate, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, have denounced his recent comment that Senator John McCain was no hero for his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Hanoi in the 1960s during the Vietnam War.
“But Kasich enters the race with a number of pretty big obstacles working against him”, writes Zelizer.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos, Kasich said the key to the race will be vision.
When it comes to the state’s economy, Owens blames Kasich for what he describes as lower job growth than the rest of the county.
During the announcement, he talked about both his experience balancing budgets for the federal and Ohio governments, and the 18 years he spent on the armed services committee.
The Republican already has $11.5 million in campaign support from the group New Day for America. Don’t sleep on John Kasich, but also don’t be too surprised if he’s bounced early, and that will be a tragedy for the Republicans. “And I’m not really all that interested in party, ideology, any of that other stuff”.
Despite his long political background, Gov. John Kasich is un-known to many Americans outside of Ohio.
But (and there’s always a but), Kasich is arguably one of the field’s most moderate candidates, which could hurt him in the primary: He was one of the few Republican governors to expand Medicaid under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and he has said he’s open to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
He ranks 14th out of 16 Republican candidates in a Reuters/Ipsos online poll, and he is in 12th place in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. “If you’re drug addicted, we’re going to try to rehab you and get you on your feet”, he said.
Advertisement
“Policy is far more important that politics, ideology or any of the other nonsense we see”, he said.
