Is Kasich eyeing ’20 in frequent TV gigs?
There he was on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning. Again. Live. John Kasich.
Kasich’s latest national TV appearance was at least his 39th of the year, according to a Dispatch analysis of his Twitter account, his office’s weekly email summaries and other sources.
In contrast, Kasich has made 37 official appearances in Ohio — the usual string of speeches, bill signings, news conferences, plant visits and
the like — as part of his day job as governor.
Whatever Kasich’s goal, the media marketing of the governor and his views has been hard to miss.
The TV talking heads and the Sunday-morning political talk shows often turn to Ohio’s never-Trump governor when they want a Republican to counter President Donald Trump.
Kasich repeatedly has obliged Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, John Dickerson, Chuck Todd and others in offering critical commentary on his party’s president, whom he neither endorsed nor supported at the ballot box. And demand for time with Kasich has only accelerated in recent months.
Easily routed by Trump for the GOP presidential nomination last year, Kasich has achieved his goal of remaining a national voice offering what he sees as sane solutions on health care, foreign affairs and other topics amid the tumult of Washington and an unpopular president.
Kasich’s visibility, including an hourlong town hall and a televised “debate” with Bernie Sanders on CNN, also keeps him before Republicans and independents as a “grown-up” alternative to a battered incumbent in the race for the 2020 GOP presidential nomination.
The lame-duck governor and his handlers, however, dismiss such speculation — while not quite slamming the door. “We’re not looking for a miraculous bank shot,” said John Weaver, who remains Kasich’s top political strategist following his failed 2016 campaign.
“It is important to keep his voice — a unique voice in the marketplace because he is all about dealing with the issues real Americans are facing in a positive, inclusive manner,” Weaver said. “That has real importance, and that is primarily what we have worked on.”
Centering on his quest to save Medicaid expansion that has extended coverage to more than 700,000 Ohioans, including the mentally ill and drug-addicted, Kasich has been a television fixture in promoting a bipartisan approach to replacing Obamacare. But he also has discussed foreign affairs and denounced Trump’s “both sides” remarks as insufficient after the tragedy of Charlottesville.
“They don’t look at him as a Trump foil. They look at him as someone who speaks truth to power,” Weaver said. “He’s a voice of reason, a voice of sanity, he’s a problem-solver at a time in our country when those three attributes are seriously lacking.”
Kasich turns down 90 percent of the interview requests he receives, Weaver said.
As one of the highest-profile Republicans to repudiate Trump, Kasich produces desirable fodder for the TV types, said Ohio native Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the newsletter Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
“The political press loves Republicans who bash other Republicans. It’s not to say what he is saying is unjustified. But Kasich certainly has been critical of Trump, and I think there definitely is a market for that,” Kondik said. “He’s obviously trying to stay in the so-called national conversation.”
Kondik, though, doesn’t see any Republican knocking off Trump for the 2020 nomination at this point. Kasich is seen as a moderate, or even a liberal, to the disapproval of more-conservative Republican voters, Kondik said.
Kasich will turn 68 in 2020; Trump will turn 74.
With his last state budget in the books, less than 17 months remaining in his term, and eight other candidates vying to succeed him, Kasich also might be fighting off “lameduck-itis,” Kondik said.
“I do wonder if this Kasich’s way of dealing with a typical problem for outgoing governors. It’s challenging for them to remain relevant. For his part, Kasich has a national platform to remain relevant,” he said.
The governor also attempted to keep his name — and beliefs — before Americans with his book “Two Paths: America United or Divided,” which was released April 25.
Kasich spent nearly three weeks in late April and early May working the TV talk circuit to promote his book while not making a single official appearance as governor. He appeared on 16 TV shows and discussed (and signed) his book in Boston, New Hampshire, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles in addition to at least four stops in Ohio.
That was not the end of Kasich’s writings. His op-ed columns, largely on health-care reform, have appeared in Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and even, during his trip to the Munich Security Conference, a German publication.
Kasich might not — or might — still harbor desires for a third presidential run, but others consider him credible enough to merit mention.
Pollsters are plucking Kasich’s name and placing it next to Trump’s to see how they fare in hypothetical matchups. He is not yet a threat to the sagging Trump in 2020, but one recent poll showed the governor leading the president in the nation’s first primary state, New Hampshire, where Kasich placed a distant second to Trump in 2016.