‘Moderate’ label dogs Gov. Kasich in race for presidency

By Jessica Wehrman

Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS

Ohio Gov. John Kasich says many things on the campaign trail, but one thing he never says is that he’s a moderate.

Pundits say it for him, using his conciliatory language on same-sex marriage and his expansion of Medicaid as evidence that he’s not aligned with the hard right of his party.

But that label misses what many say is an unabashedly conservative record. Kasich opposes gun-control measures, is staunchly opposed to abortion and, despite his decision to expand Medicaid, would prefer to send that money to states as block grants. New Day for America, the super-PAC supporting Kasich, is sure to call him the “conservative” governor in its ads airing in New Hampshire.

“I would say on almost every issue he has been very far to the right,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper. “He’s clearly got his Etch A Sketch in full shake mode right now.”

The “moderate” label so frustrates some in his state that Ohio Senate Minority Leader Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, wrote a lengthy editorial for USA Today last week decrying it, writing, “My job would be a whole lot easier if John Kasich were actually a moderate.” He added that Kasich’s words “are just prettier packaging for the same right-wing agenda of the other GOP presidential candidates.”

Those on the right complain as well. Kasich’s expansion of Medicaid was the first thing that earned the ire of conservatives, said Tom Zawistowski, a tea party leader from Portage County.

And the governor’s language on illegal immigration – he supports a path to legalization for those already here – further enrages Zawistowski. “Kasich is a cheerleader for illegal immigration,” he said.

While the state government has a budget surplus now, it’s also spending more than it was under former Gov. Ted Strickland, he said, adding that “conservative is not growing the government.”

Kasich himself has repeatedly said that the label of conservatism has been “distorted.”

“I think Republicans allow themselves to be put in a box,” he said recently on CNN, saying that many think it’s not conservative to care about disadvantaged people. “To me, conservatism is giving everyone a chance to be able to be successful.”

Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, a close Kasich ally, said the governor is striking a chord when he talks about the image of a conservative being skewed – and he may be addressing an issue that has cost Republicans past elections.

Borges cites 2012 exit polls indicating that, while voters felt GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would better handle the economy and national security, they voted for President Barack Obama “because he cared more about someone like me.”

“I think that really hurt us,” Borges said.

He said Republicans see an opportunity in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s early stumbles in the Democratic presidential race. This might be the year when voters see Republicans as the party that cares more about them.

“The truth of the matter is the governor is a conservative,” Borges said. “He’s been committed to cutting taxes and reshaping Ohio’s finances, and he’s been socially conservative, and he’s pro-life, and he’s a lot of things I think that many liberals don’t like.

“But I think he is also cognizant of the state that we live in and the fact that we are a microcosm of the nation in a lot of ways – that we have large urban centers that require attention, and he’s done his best to give appropriate attention to those communities.”

The “moderate” label really took off after the first debate, when, responding to a question about gay marriage, Kasich acknowledged that he is against it, but “because somebody doesn’t think the way I do doesn’t mean I can’t care about them or can’t love them.”

His answer irritates Pepper, pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this summer striking down Ohio’s statewide ban on same-sex marriage. Pepper said the “reason Ohio was at the Supreme Court and the reason Jim Obergefell changed the country was because Ohio was the one that wasn’t moderate. We’re the state that held on to the bitter end.”

Others question whether being labeled moderate is a good thing in a primary.

Former Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who has not endorsed anyone so far, said he wonders whether Kasich’s strategy ultimately will appeal primarily to those who don’t vote in Republican primaries. “That’s a problem,” Blackwell said.

“If, in fact, the governor has decided that what he wants to do is establish that he can speak to a base that’s broader than the Republican primary voter, then that is an interesting risk,” he said.

Amy Walter, national editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington, said that regardless of political labels, conservatives may ultimately reject Kasich because he accepted hundreds of millions of Medicaid dollars from the 2010 health law known as Obamacare to provide health coverage for low-income people.

She said that, for many, the threshold issue is Obamacare: Anyone not doing everything possible to destroy it, she said, is considered a squish. “And I think that is for Kasich going to be a defining issue,” she said. “If you have not been part of the drive to destroy it, then you are part of the problem.”

She said Kasich likely will emphasize his conservative record as governor in the months to follow. “The question becomes for Republican voters: What is acceptable? How much difference will they accept?”

Walter said primary voters cast their ballots based on two things: ideology and electability. Of the two, the first matters more in a primary.

She said Kasich can make up for ideological differences in part by emphasizing his competence. His commercials emphasize his many years on the House Armed Services Committee, his work balancing the federal budget and his work as governor.

Ideology, she said, is more subjective.

“I think, for a lot of conservative voters, it’s like porn: I know it when I see it. I can’t define it, but I know what it is and I know what it’s not,” she said.

Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter, said that, to date, the race isn’t so much about moderate versus conservative as it is insider versus outsider.

Gonzales said Kasich has a unique perspective. For the first half of his career, he was an insider, walking the halls of Congress, meeting with the president, passing bills. But now, as the governor of a state far from Washington, he can make more of an outsider argument, albeit not as much as billionaire Donald Trump can.

“He’s trying to walk the line between getting establishment support from people who have known him and are comfortable with him, but getting that outsider credibility by not being in Washington right now,” Gonzales said.