Tag Archives: John Kasich

‘Tag team’ gangs up against Trump

cruz and kasich

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio have formed a tag team.

The want to stop Donald J. Trump’s march to the Republican Party’s presidential nomination so badly they’re willing to forget the mean things they’ve said about each other.

Will it work? I am not holding my breath for this strategy to cause the sky to crash down on Trump’s campaign.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/04/ted-cruz-john-kasich-team-up-222377

It is an interesting alliance and an interesting strategy.

Kasich is going to bow out of campaigning actively for the Indiana GOP primary in two weeks, intending to leave the field more open to Cruz. Meanwhile, Cruz said he’s going to cede the anti-Trump vote in Oregon and New Mexico to Kasich.

What does this to — or for — Trump? It gives him some ammo to fire in his effort to suggest the GOP primary nomination selection process is “rigged” against him.

Yep, it’s going to fire up those devoted Trumpsters — or should I call them Trumpkins? — who are standing by their man through thick and thin.

My nagging question, though, is this: Suppose this strategy works. Who between the tag-team partners is going to emerge as the top dog in this fight for the party’s presidential nomination?

 

Pass the pills to Rep. King?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 06: Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz listens at the restaurant Sabrosura 2 on April 6, 2016 in the Bronx borough of New York City. Cruz, who won last night's Wisconsin primary, was visiting New York in advance of New York's Republican primary on April 19, 2016. (Photo by Bryan Thomas/Getty Images)

There’s hyperbole.

Then there’s this, from U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., about the prospect of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz becoming the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.

King said he might “take cyanide” if Cruz gets nominated.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/276789-rep-pete-king-i-hate-ted-cruz

Holy moly, Congressman. Don’t sugar-coat your feelings.

“I hate Ted Cruz,” King said.

I guess his mother needed to tell young Petey what most of our mothers told the rest of us: “If you can’t say something nice … ”

It must be Cruz’s “New York values” comment that got New Yorkers all riled up. Perhaps it’s the idea that a Texan could lead the party’s election ticket this fall.

I’m pretty sure, though, Cruz’s values statement really got under King’s skin. He said any New Yorker who votes for Cruz should “have their head examined.” That’s a clue, yes?

But then King said some more curious things.

He believes Donald J. Trump will be the GOP nominee, but he’s not “endorsing” his fellow New Yorker. Then King said he voted for Ohio Gov. John Kasich in early voting, but he isn’t endorsing Kasich, either.

A vote isn’t an endorsement? C’mon, Rep. King. Shoot straight with the rest of us. OK?

He said that Kasich would make a “good vice president” running with Trump at the top of the ticket.

King needs to go back just a few days. That was when Kasich said, in effect, that hell would have to freeze over for him to run on a ticket led by Trump.

Well, that’s what Kasich said. Politics, though, does have this way of changing politicians’ minds.

I’m sure, therefore, that Rep. King won’t be popping any poison pills if the Republican Party launches the Cruz Missile at the Democrats this fall.

 

Gov. Kasich faces a bitter irony

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John Kasich must feel like the unluckiest politician in America.

He’s caught in perhaps the most bitter irony in recent political history.

The Ohio governor is running for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. He’s one of three men still standing in what began as a 17-candidate GOP primary free-for-all.

Given that we’ve been talking — a lot! — about public opinion polling in this presidential campaign, it’s good to mention this: Kasich stands alone among the three men still running as the only candidate who can defeat probable Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton. Donald Trump loses big to Clinton; so does Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Why, then, does Gov. Kasich still struggle as the longest shot of all the GOP candidates who will become the party’s presidential nominee this summer?

The Republican base has endorsed Trump and Cruz in all those primaries and caucuses. Kasich has won exactly one contest: in Ohio, the state he governs. Hey, man, he had to win that one, right?

I’ve heard pundit after pundit, voter after voter say the same thing: Gov. Kasich is the last grown-up in this race.

Trump and Cruz are despised by the Republican establishment for varying reasons. Trump lacks a governing philosophy; Cruz seems to have virtually no friends in the U.S. Senate, where he has served since January 2013.

It appears, though, that one of those two individuals is going to carry the GOP banner into the fall against Clinton. Those polls? They keep showing they’ll lose. Maybe by a lot.

Kasich continues to poll far better vs. Clinton than either of them.

He also continues to lag far behind in the Republican Party polls of primary voters.

Poor guy. I feel sorry for Gov. Kasich.

 

Who’s done most to earn presidency?

kasich

Now that the debate over which presidential candidates are “qualified” to assume the office if they get elected is more or less over, let’s turn to actual accomplishment.

Part of the qualification argument ought to include who among the five individuals running for the office have done something worthy of consideration. Do they have sufficient executive experience? Have they accomplished anything of substance legislatively? Does business experience matter?

Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first.

The business experience is helpful in a limited way. Yep, that notion zeroes in on Donald J. Trump. However, as I’ve noted before — although not recently — government is not intended to be run “like a business.” Trump seems to equate everything to “cutting deals.” Treaty negotiation? “I’ll make the best deals imaginable,” he says. Working with Congress? Same thing. Trade agreements? “We’re losing everywhere; we won’t when I’m president,” he boasts.

Knock it off, Trump! You cannot do these things in a vacuum.

He’s got zero government experience. To borrow a phrase: Trump is a loser.

Government executive experience matters much more. Of the remaining candidates, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton qualify. I’d rate Kasich’s years as governor over Clinton’s as secretary of state. Kasich has had to manage a budget, deal with legislators, fight with constituents — sometimes all at once.

Clinton has managed a huge federal agency. She flew more miles to more countries than any previous secretary of state; I’m unsure where here successor, John Kerry, stands in that regard. She has sought to negotiate disputes between nations and, yes, has been caught up in controversy. But her time at State matters … a lot!

Legislative accomplishment?

Here’s where it’s kind of a runaway.

Clinton, U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Bernie Sanders of Vermont all have congressional experience. None of them can boast of an accomplishment that measures up to Kasich’s time in the U.S. House of Reps.

I’m trying to figure out which major piece of legislation has any the names of Clinton, Cruz or Sanders. Cruz’s major “accomplishment” was to mount that idiotic filibuster in an effort to wipe out the Affordable Care Act. Sanders and Clinton can’t even “brag” about something so ridiculous.

Kasich, though, served as chairman of the House Budget Committee that played a major role in achieving a balanced federal budget in the 1990s. That is no small feat, given the toxic political climate at the time. The House was run by Republicans; the president, Bill Clinton, is a Democrat. The White House and Capitol Hill had different notions on how to achieve a balanced budget. They found common ground.

There, my friends, is where one candidate’s record shines.

Is it enough for Republicans to nominate him? Probably not. They’re going to haggle at their convention over whether to nominate two patently frightening “outsiders,” one of whom is the real thing (Trump), the other of whom (Cruz) keeps trashing the legislative body where he’s served since January 2013.

Sure, each of these people is technically “qualified” constitutionally to run for the office. And yes, that includes the Canadian-born-to-an-American-mother Cruz.

I still rate Clinton’s combined government experience — and I include her policy-making influence during her eight years as the nation’s first lady — as giving her a slight edge in the overall presidential qualification contest.

If only the Republican delegates this summer would come to their senses and deliver their party’s nomination to the remaining candidate, Gov. Kasich, who actually has something to show for his lengthy public service record. Then we could have a serious debate this fall on who to select as the nation’s next president.

If only …

 

Gov. Kasich getting the faintest of praise

kasich

I can’t quite figure this out.

As Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton bicker over who between them is “qualified” to be president, they and fellow Democrats keep tossing the faintest of praise toward a Republican presidential candidate.

Here’s how it’s going.

Reporters keep badgering Sanders and Clinton about what they have said about each other’s qualifications. They both say the essentially the same thing about the other candidate: “I would prefer Secretary Clinton/Sen. Sanders any day over either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.”

Tonight, former Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley said he’d prefer either Clinton or Sanders over Trump or Cruz.

That’s four of the five candidates accounted for.

But what about the fifth one? Ohio Gov. John Kasich?

Neither Clinton or Sanders mention Kasich in the same breath with Trump and Cruz?

I am left to presume one of two things:

Either they secretly admire Gov. Kasich’s adult conduct during this campaign and his political background or … they believe he’s no longer a serious threat to become the Republican presidential nominee.

I hate to think they’re writing him off.

I also know better than to think Clinton and Sanders have some sort of secret admiration for someone who — if lightning strikes or Earth spins off its axis in the next 20 minutes — well might oppose one of them in this year’s presidential campaign.

I’m betting Kasich is going to take his non-mention in this bickering as a form of compliment.

 

Who’s ‘qualified’ to be president?

trust-1

I am now going to weigh in on who I believe is qualified to become the 45th president of the United States.

The qualification issue has arisen in the Democratic Party primary. The candidates keep yapping about the other’s qualifications, or lack thereof.

But look, we’ve got four men and one woman running for president. Why not, then, take a quick look at each individual’s “qualifications.”

First, let’s stipulate the obvious: They’re all technically qualified, even Rafael Edward Cruz, the Canadian-born U.S. senator from Texas who earned his constitutional qualification by virtue of his mother’s U.S. citizenship.

No question about any of the others in that regard.

So, here goes, for what it’s worth — which ain’t much. In order:

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most qualified. She served as first lady during her husband’s two terms as president. She was elected twice to the U.S. Senate from New York. She has served four years as secretary of state. She ran for president in 2008 and won many Democratic state primaries, including the Texas primary, that year.

She knows how government works and has a good knowledge of the limitations of the office of president. She once was a lawyer, after all.

John Kasich is a very close second. The Republican Ohio governor has a record as a member of Congress that should make him proud. He helped balance the federal budget as chairman of the House Budget Committee. He exhibits a good dose of the “compassionate conservatism” touted by former President George W. Bush. He reaches across the aisle and knows to compromise without sacrificing his principles.

He’s developed a solid record as Ohio governor. Kasich, too, understands government and its limitations.

Ted Cruz comes in a distant third. This one really is nearly a tossup with the next person. At one level, he might be the scariest candidate running for the White House. This freshman GOP U.S. senator keeps invoking theology, apparently disregarding that the Founding Fathers worked real hard to create a secular government. Cruz also seems too quick to “carpet bomb” Islamic State targets, which quite naturally is going to produce civilian casualties in direct contradiction to military policies established by two presidents, one Republican and one Democrat.

Bernie Sanders is fourth, but barely so. He’s served in Congress a lot longer than Cruz. However, his campaign for the Democratic nomination has begun to bore me. Why? He says the same thing over and over: Wall Street banks bad; wage inequality preys on women and minorities; we need to make the “top 1 percent” pay more in taxes.

Foreign policy? He remains strangely uninterested in talking about that.

Donald J. Trump is patently, categorically and unequivocally unsuited for the presidency. Sure, he’s a natural-born American. So … he’s “qualified.” But he is clueless about the limits of the office he seeks to occupy. He has vaulted to the top of the GOP heap by appealing to Americans’ darker instincts. His insults go so far beyond the pale that many of us have run out of words to describe them.

Read any transcript of the leading Republican candidate’s answers to direct questions and you are going to be blown away by his absolute incoherence.

 

Who’s qualified to become POTUS?

kasich and clinton

Politicians “walk back” comments all the time.

They get caught up in the heat of tossing verbal barbs and stones and then rethink what they say. Are the rest of us allowed to reconsider things we say out loud?

I’ll do so here. I won’t take back everything I said earlier.

At issue are the qualifications of the current crop of candidates for president of the United States. I said in an earlier blog post that I believe Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most qualified of the five people running for president — in either party.

Here is what I wrote earlier.

Then came a comment from a regular reader/critic of this blog. He tells me that Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s qualifications and record make him the most qualified candidate.

This reader, I feel compelled to note, is an Ohio native. So maybe — just maybe — his view is a bit colored by some home-boy bias. I hope he might concede that point. I won’t hold it against him if he doesn’t.

He does make a good point, though, about Kasich — who long ago emerged as my favorite Republican presidential candidate.

Why is Kasich my favorite? He works well with Democrats. He showed an ability to do so while he served in Congress. A good bit of his congressional service included his chairmanship of the House Budget Committee, which — as its title suggests — helps craft the federal budget.

While he sat in the chairman’s seat, the federal government managed to balance its budget. That means Chairman Kasich was able to reach a meeting of the minds with the Democrat who at the time was president; that would be William Jefferson Clinton.

That is no small task. It’s been made even more profound given the current political climate that has poisoned the air and water in Washington.

He’s my favorite Republican for that reason, plus his grown-up answers to today’s tough questions. He understands how government works, how Washington works. That also commends him for the presidency, rather than the blow-it-up approach preached by Donald J. Trump and Rafael Edward Cruz.

Does this make him more qualified than Hillary Clinton? My critic says Clinton’s service has been marginal; she “stood by her man” as U.S. first lady, served an undistinguished tenure in the Senate and her time as secretary of state was plagued by scandal … he said.

That’s his view. I honor that. I just disagree with it.

I do, though, admire Gov. Kasich’s service. I hope lightning strikes at the GOP convention this summer that produces a Kasich nomination for president.

Then the decision for yours truly becomes difficult.

Polls, polls … and more polls

sandersclinton_040116getty

Is it me or have the media become more obsessed with poll coverage in this presidential election cycle than ever before in the history of mass media in this country?

Of particular interest to me are a certain type of intraparty poll that measures candidates’ relative strength against each other.

These surveys drive me nuts. Bonkers, man!

Why? They’re meaningless.

Here’s the latest: NBC says Hillary Rodham Clinton holds a nine-point lead over Democratic Party primary rival U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. That’s nationally.

What, I ask, does that mean? Does that mean if we had a national political primary that Clinton would beat Sanders by nine percentage points?

Maybe. Except that we aren’t going through a national primary election cycle. Candidates are trudging through these primaries state by bloody state, where the voters in each state have different perspectives, different worries and concerns, different philosophies.

Wisconsin is going to have its Democratic and Republican primaries today. Sanders is favored at this moment to win the Democratic primary; U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is favored to win the GOP primary.

Still, the media keep reporting that Donald J. Trump holds a diminishing national lead over Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich in a national poll of Republican voters.

I’m running out of ways to say this: I do not care about national intraparty polls. They are not relevant to anything.

Some TV pundits the other evening were saying that they perceive fewer “horse-race” questions coming from the media as the primary campaigns head toward the home stretch. They say they’re hearing more “policy-driven” questions … allegedly.

More policy and fewer polls, please.

 

Abortion tempest erupts

 

Chalkboard - Abortion

Donald J. Trump finds himself in the middle of a tempest over arguably the most contentious political issue ever.

Again!

The Republican Party presidential primary frontrunner said Wednesday — in response to some aggressive questioning by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews — that a woman should face “some punishment” were she to obtain an illegal abortion.

Yep. He said that. A woman should be punished.

Then the firestorm erupted. What in the world is he talking about?

Republican candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich were quick to condemn Trump’s statement. Then came the fury from Democratic candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Within a couple of hours, Trump issued a statement that said the doctor should face the sanction, not the woman whose pregnancy was ended.

I won’t bother you with a dissertation on my own views of abortion, as you perhaps already know I remain pro-choice on the issue.

What is bothersome about Trump’s answer and then his recanting of his initial response is the non-preparedness the candidate keeps exhibiting when pressed for answers on these critical issues.

Abortion matters deeply to many millions of Americans. It seems, to me at least, that few of us have mild feelings about the issue. We’re either fervently pro-choice or pro-life. Trump’s view on the issue has evolved over time. He is seen on videotape telling an interviewer about a decade ago that he is “strongly pro-choice.” Then he told Matthews this week that he is “pro-life.”

I’d be curious to know what changed Trump’s view on this issue. How did he go from one firm position to another? Perhaps the only other major-party politician I can recall pulling such a dramatic switcheroo would be George H.W. Bush, who abandoned his pro-choice views immediately upon accepting Ronald Reagan’s invitation to join him on the GOP presidential ticket in 1980.

Donald Trump initial answer to the question of whether a woman should face punishment reveals what Sen. Cruz identified correctly as Trump’s utter lack of preparation to discuss these issues when confronted with them.

Somehow, though, I cannot escape the feeling that Trump will find a way to deny he ever said what millions of Americans already heard him say.

Most disturbing of all will be that many Americans will believe him.

 

Trump might be ready to retaliate

Donald-Trump_3372655b

Donald J. Trump more or less laid down the predicate for his candidacy when he announced it this past summer.

The Republican Party had better treat me nicely, he said, or else I’m going to make life miserable for the political brass.

I cannot help but wonder today if that prophecy is about to come true.

Trump and the other two surviving GOP presidential candidates are taking back their pledge to support the party nominee — no matter who it happens to be. Ted Cruz went back on his pledge, presuming the nominee is Trump; so did John Kasich, for the same reason.

Trump has more delegates than any other candidate. He’s in the best position as the primary campaign heads into its second half.

What happens, though, if he gets to Cleveland with a commanding delegate lead, but is still short of majority he needs to win the nomination on the first ballot outright?

This is where it might get real nasty for the Republican Party high command, which already detests the idea of Trump carrying the party banner into battle against the Democratic Party nominee.

Trump said he wanted to be treated “fairly” at the convention. I’m guessing by “fairly” he means that he gets his way. The other candidates would drop out and release their delegates to back Trump. He well might demand that the Republican National Committee insist that the others drop out. If it doesn’t, well, then what?

Trump then might have to decide if he’s going to carry through with his threat to run as an independent, which would guarantee the Democrats keep the White House.

What happens if he stays within his newfound party home, captures the nomination and then goes on to get blown out by the other party’s candidate who, I am going to presume, will be Hillary Rodham Clinton? You know as well as I know that Clinton’s camp is going to be loaded with ammo with which to launch a heavy barrage against Trump.

No matter which course Trump takes between now and the convention, the road ahead for the Republican Party appears to be strewn with land mines, sink holes, booby traps, crocs in the swamp … you name it.

I’ll hand it to the party’s presumptive nominee.

He gave the country — and his party — fair warning.