(AP Photo/Jim Cole)
From the very beginning of the 2016 race for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, I was touting the virtues of Ohio Governor John Kasich. I felt that the popular governor of a critical swing state who also had extensive experience in Congress on budget and national security issues had the perfect resume. Add in the fact that he believes in reaching across the aisle to work with the other party, I felt that he could easily win the general election and actually accomplish big things as president.
Last night’s Republican debate was a fiasco, a train wreck, an embarrassment and there was only one adult in the room: John Kasich. A week ago, Florida Senator Marco Rubio began a kamikaze mission to try to out-Trump the Donald. He started going after him furiously with all of the opposition research that for some unimaginable reason is just now coming to light. In the aftermath of last Thursday’s debate, Rubio started using personal insults against the King of Insults, including a reference to Trump’s small hands (“you know that that means.”) Because I was travelling to New York City to help my mother celebrate a milestone birthday today, I didn’t actually see last night’s debate until this morning. I did however watch some of the post-debate commentary and went online to see what the headlines were. In a normal universe, you would see headlines like this: “Trump defends health care plan” or “Cruz attacks Rubio for immigration stance.” Instead, one of the top headlines on www.cnn.com was:
“Donald Trump defends the size of his penis.”
This is the ridiculous reality show that the Republican nominating process has devolved into. I blame Trump for setting this tone, I take issue Rubio (and to a lesser extent, Ted Cruz) for playing his game by sinking to his level and I really fault the ratings and readers’ starved national media for making headline news out of every insult and barb that has been leveled in this farce of a campaign process.
For the first time, John Kasich was the clear winner in one of the debates. Cruz did well also. Rubio (who is very sick and was hoarse) didn’t have his best night because he and Trump were talking over each other all night and Rubio’s weakened voice was lost in that din. I don’t see how any rational person could watch that debate and not feel that John Kasich was the best man to be the standard-bearer for the party in the general election.
However, because he’s a moderate and reasonable Republican in a year where the party base is furious about politicians in general and wants to throw all the bums out, Kasich was an underdog in this race from the beginning. Even in a parallel universe where Donald Trump didn’t enter the race, Kasich still would have had a tough time in the primary. But now we’re down to the Final Four and he’s still standing. Now, for those of you who are college hoops fans, I’ll throw this March Madness analogy your way: he’s George Mason or Butler in a Final Four with Duke, Kentucky and North Carolina. Kasich’s path to the nomination is so narrow you would need a 40-pound child to squeeze through it.
The only way Kasich wins is by capturing his home state of Ohio, which is a “winner take all delegates” prize and sticking around until the end of the process, hoping that Trump falls shy of the 1,237 delegates required to clinch the nomination. If no candidate reaches that magic number (which is 50% of the total delegates), then it’s a contested convention and anything could happen. It hasn’t occurred since 1976 when Gerald Ford didn’t have 50% of the delegates in his contest against Ronald Reagan but was close enough that he was nominated on the first ballot. (More on what a contested convention would mean in 2016 in a future post).
Four states vote tomorrow (Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine). As I indicated the other day, all but Louisiana are caucuses, formats where Trump has not done as well. Also, all four states are closed to only registered Republicans. Part of Trump’s winning formula has been to bring new voters, independents and blue collar Democrats into his tent so that also lessens his normal advantage of the alpha in the multi-candidate field. I would expect that Trump will win Louisiana, Kentucky will be a three-horse race, Cruz will win Kansas and Kasich might actually finally win a state, in Maine. There’s no polling in Maine so I have no scientific basis from which to make that prediction but it neighbors New Hampshire where Kasich did well and the debate might give him a boost.
Thanks for reading !
Chris Bodig