Kasich’s roots in McKees Rocks are a familiar theme in campaign
Although John Kasich left McKees Rocks at 18, the Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate often returns to his old stomping grounds. Rhetorically, at least.
References to McKees Rocks have peppered Mr. Kasich’s talks, ads and writings since before his first gubernatorial run in 2010, and newspaper stories often quote him harking back to his mill town upbringing.
“Kasich has been telling his McKees Rocks story for years,” said a May 2014 story in The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Case in point: A television ad the Kasich presidential campaign debuted in January opens with footage of Island Avenue in McKees Rocks and includes a shot of the former Mother of Sorrows church in Stowe. “John Kasich never gives up,” says the ad, intimating that the candidate inherited his hometown’s steel backbone.
Mr. Kasich, 63, who is hoping for a strong showing in today’s New Hampshire primary and has said he’ll curtail his campaign if he doesn’t get it, has mentioned McKees Rocks even at times one might have expected his mind to be riveted elsewhere.
“I love Cleveland because when I’m in Cleveland, I feel — I feel like I just left McKees Rocks,” he said during his first State of the State address as Ohio governor in March 2011.
The following month, during a stop in Twinsburg, Ohio, Mr. Kasich flirted with political disaster by talking up his Pittsburgh roots before a group of grumbling Cleveland Browns fans.