Kasich accenting America

COLUMBUS

It’s getting harder and harder to listen to Gov. John Kasich without thinking about his potential 2016 plans.

Is he going to run for president? Is he just having fun with the press? There’s plenty of speculation.

Kasich publicly is noncommittal about the prospect, generally saying he’s focused on the coming biennial budget deliberations and all things Ohio as he kicks off his second term.

But pundits across the state and country are mentioning Kasich in conversations about presidential hopefuls.

And that leads people like me, who attend the governor’s events and listen to his speeches on a regular basis, wondering whether there’s some deeper, hidden meaning in the stuff he’s saying.Take his official midnight inauguration, where he took the oath of office and offered brief comments to those of us gathered to watch.

“We have a great opportunity to renew the spirit of our nation as we renew the spirit of our state,” he said. “I mean this from the bottom of my heart: If we can unite Ohioans to begin to care about the people who live next door and maybe about the people that we don’t even know ... If we can do that, we can begin to renew not just our state but, again, renew the spirit of our country.”

Did you catch that? He’s talking about the country and Ohio leading the way toward renewal, about residents here uniting to show the rest of the nation how to get things done.

Has there been a subtle shift in the governor’s rhetoric? Consider his inaugural address, which included half a dozen mentions of “nation” and about 20 mentions of “America” or “Americans.”

By contrast, he mentioned “America” about four times in his last State of the State speech.

“We are Ohioans,” he said during his ceremonial inaugural. “We are Americans. We can’t be partisans, and we cannot be extreme ideologues if we’re going to deal with the problems of America. Americans and Ohioans are hungry to see people work together — build a better Ohio and build a better nation.”

MAKING AMERICA GREAT

And, “We must never give up on strengthening America’s families because it makes America good. It makes America great.”

A couple of days later, the governor was assisting Ambassador Zhang Qiyue, the Chinese consul general in New York, into a seat in his Statehouse Cabinet room to announce an expansion of a Chinese auto glass facility in Ohio. He talked about potentially traveling to China to build relationships with business there.

“I don’t know that this will happen, but it’s likely that [Fuyao Glass America Inc. Chairman Cao Dewang] will host me in China at some point, which would provide an opportunity for me to meet more businesses and let people know that Ohio is open for Chinese investment and Chinese business,” he said.

A day after that, Kasich addressed a human trafficking awareness event at the Statehouse, where he repeated that other parts of the country had their eye on Ohio and the things happening under his administration.

On the one hand, the governor has made comparable comments during the past four years about how policies adopted in Ohio are being emulated by other states seeking economic recovery

On the other, the comments take on an added significance when they come from a guy who might be running for a higher office and who is making a lot more references publicly to “America.”

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.