Posted on 12/14/2018 10:55:54 AM PST by Kaslin
It was only a few weeks ago when outgoing Ohio Governor John Kasich said he was seriously considering a 2020 primary challenge to President Trump, if only to “send a message.” (Who that message was intended for remains unclear.) But hey… the guy is going to be unemployed come January so he needs something to keep himself busy.
But now, with Christmas fast approaching, something seems to have changed. During an interview with the Associated Press, Kasich was striking a decidedly different tone. Clearly, if you’re going to mount a primary challenge, you need to believe that you at least have a chance of winning. But the Governor came out and flatly stated that he probably can’t beat Trump. (The Hill)
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) says he’s seriously considering a presidential run against President Trump, but admitted Thursday that he probably could not win a Republican primary today.
“If you’re going to run as a Republican you have to have a sense that if you get into primaries you can win. Right now, probably couldn’t win,” he told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview. “But that’s today. It’s ever changing.”
He says he is still weighing his options for 2020 and is having his advisors monitor the headlines surrounding the White House, including Trump’s legal entanglements and talks of impeachment.
“It’s not like I wouldn’t do it,” he told the AP. “You can’t be afraid to do it.”
This interview is all over the place and makes me wonder if Kasich is firing on all cylinders these days. Just look at a few of the quotes which are strung together in a short period of time.
“probably couldn’t win”
“You can’t be afraid to do it”
“you have to have a sense that if you get into primaries you can win.”
Kasich is having his staff “monitor the headlines” but there are probably a couple of other factors they should be monitoring. As of last week’s Gallup poll, the President has an 89% approval rating among Republicans. Sure, his overall approval rating is still hovering in the low forties, but those Republicans are the only ones voting in the primary. It’s not even clear if Kasich could carry his own state in a primary because Trump is still above water in Ohio among all voters and very strong among the GOP primary voters.
The last time we had a primary challenge such as the one Kasich is considering was when Pat Buchanan took a run at George H.W. Bush in 92. Bush wasn’t in any legal trouble, but he’d broken his “read my lips” pledge and his numbers were tanking. Even for all that, Buchanan never did better than the 37% he mustered in New Hampshire. He didn’t carry a single state and was in the low teens in most of them.
Keep an eye on history and one foot in reality, Governor. You can always try again in 2024.
He really wants to be the Postmaster General!!
Some people who don’t have a chance in hell of winning will mount a primary campaign just so they can raise money and get a bunch of family members and other loyal supporters employed at the expense of campaign contributors. I’ll list Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani as two perfect examples of this in recent years.
So is he Don Quixote or Sancho Panza?
Poor repulsive John. Memorable, only for his on-film slovenly, eating habits. Otherwise, a blank page.
Trump froze him.
Is that a nice way of saying he is delusional?
John Kasich wrote this article about himself being delusional?
I think that what this jerk wants to do, since Trump totally ignored him for VP and cabinet positions, is to form a third party to suck votes away from Trump in 2020.
In essence, this total fool is virtually unemployable not that he will be out of office. And if he can ruin it at all for Trump’s reelection, then he’ll do anything.
He is now and has been a total embarrassment to all decent people in the state of Ohio, right down there with Sherod Brown, Kook-sinich, Metzenbaum, Voinovich, (fill in the blanks).
I think many of these losers (and that includes McCain and Romney) go into some kind of permanent ego meltdown once they’re rejected by the voters. Then, in order to counterbalance this, they start having narcissistic fantasies that they’re still important people, nonetheless.
As far as Kasich is concerned, that human piece of garbage (who didn’t even have the class to show up at the Presidential convention held in his own STATE) could commit hara-kiri on live TV and would have hard pressed to find anyone who actually gave a shit.
He could double his 2016 Electoral Vote count by picking up 1 more vote.
[IIRC, he entered the convention with 1 EV.]
can he run for office from the lunatic asylum?
QOVFEFE™
LOL! Nice, Kas.
Oops no, Jazz Shaw did. Thanks for pointing it out.
If the primary was being held in 2017, Kasich might have moved the needle. There were enough Republicans who had enough problems with Trump that they might have gone for any viable alternative.
But Trump has won over a lot of those Republicans, and a lot more have closed ranks around Trump after the Kavanaugh affair. Plus Kasich has shown his true colors on gun control, which is a red-line issue for many Republicans, myself included. John “You Don’t Need a God-Darn AR-15” Kasich won’t break 10% in any state, and will be out by Florida.
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