Kasich’s bachelor life as a congressman came to the attention of Time magazine, which in its October 14, 1996, broached the subject of Kasich’s homosexuality a year before the Ohio Republican married his current wife. In an article titled “The Baiting Game,” Karen Tumulty wrote, “For almost 14 years it had passed without comment that the local Congressman, John Kasich, the powerful chairman of the House Budget Committee, stretches his paycheck by sharing a Virginia town house for the two or three nights a week that Congress is in session. His housemate? His male chief of staff. Last month Cynthia Ruccia, Kasich’s Democratic challenger, called for a Justice Department investigation of what she said was ‘a serious appearance of impropriety’ because Kasich, who is divorced, lived with someone whose government salary he controls.”
The male chief of staff was Don Thibaut. Kasich and Thibaut were best friends while Kasich served in the Ohio Senate from 1979 to 1982. Thibaut followed Kasich to Washington and Kasich named Thibaut, who was single, his chief of staff. Although they maintained separate residences in the Columbus area, the two shared a townhouse in Virginia. The Advocate, a gay-oriented magazine reported in its November 12, 1996, issue that Thibaut received an annual salary of $108,000, considered unusually high for a chief of staff.
Kasich had been resisting 0bama’s agenda. 0bama called him to DC for golf. Once Kasich went home, everything changed.
Hecky durn. He’s always seemed a bit queer.