Book tour has political undertones for Kasich

Officially, John Kasich’s book tour has nothing to do with a possible 2020 presidential run.

However, the Ohio governor will be brushing up against all sorts of presidential trappings in the next two weeks as he travels from coast to coast to tout “Two Paths: America Divided or United.”

Kasich will read from his fourth book May 5 at the Nixon Library in southern California.

He will be interviewed Wednesday at Harvard by David Gergen, adviser to multiple presidents.

On May 1, David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s longtime political guru, will chat with Kasich at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.

The governor returns Thursday to the presidential testing grounds of New Hampshire. No overtly political events are scheduled for the Granite State, although a small reception for his supporters will be held just before his talk at St. Anselm College — where Kasich made the first appearance of his 2016 presidential campaign more than two years ago. He also may do a TV interview in the state that traditionally holds the nation’s first presidential primary.

The two-week run starts Monday night at a primetime town hall in New York City with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, followed by an event Tuesday afternoon at Manhattan’s Hudson Union.

Kasich also has an appearance next Friday at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia and a May 1 stop at the Union League Club in Chicago. Also planned are more-conventional events at several bookstores, including in Seattle, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

And he has stops in Ohio, such as a 1:30 p.m. visit on April 29 at Books and Company in Beavercreek near Dayton, followed by a 7 p.m. event at Joseph-Beth book store in Cincinnati.

The next day, Kasich will be at the Barnes & Noble in Crocker Park Mall in Westlake, near Cleveland.

As required by law, the state will pay for State Highway Patrol security for the governor wherever he travels.