Kasich hangs in there – barely

Conventional wisdom when it comes to presidential politics is that governors and former governors make great candidates.

Governors head the executive branch of their states and oversee numerous departments and thousands of employees – a smaller version of what the president does.

However when it comes to the 2016 Republican presidential race, forget about conventional wisdom.

Billionaire Donald Trump, a real-estate developer and former TV reality show host, has led in polls – or been a very close second for a short period of time – for several months. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has been Trump’s closest rival. Both are political novices.

As for the governors, both current and past, this campaign has been a disaster.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker appeared to be a strong candidate but stumbled in the first GOP debate on Aug. 6 and didn’t do any better in the Sept. 16 debate. Five days after that latter event, Walker quit the race as he saw his polling numbers sink.

Ex-Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who also unsuccessfully ran for the party’s nomination in 2012, never gained any traction this time. He was relegated to the early debate – with the unflattering nickname of the “kiddie table” for the second-tier candidates – on Aug. 6 because of terrible polling numbers. He was the first Republican candidate to get out of the race on Sept. 11.

When Walker quit, I predicted Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal would be the next to go. He had little money and barely registered a blip in the polls.

During the four prime-time Republican presidential debates, Jindal never made it to prime time, stuck in the early debates each time. He left the race Tuesday with 0.3 percent of the vote, according to polling data compiled by RealClearPolitics.com.

When I interviewed him in July 2012, Jindal was considered a rising star in Republican politics. A lot has changed in a little over three years.

Meanwhile, the early frontrunner, ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, continues to go nowhere, stuck at fifth in polling with 5.3 percent.

We should be counting the days until ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie quit. For Huckabee, his numbers continue to plummet. He’s in ninth with 2.7 percent. Christie is even worse in 10th place at 2.3 percent.

It’s so bad for the two that neither qualified for the Nov. 10 prime-time debate. They spent their time at the kiddie table with Jindal and ex-Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Ex-New York Gov. George Pataki’s numbers – or is 0.3 percent a number? – are worse. He didn’t even qualify for the Nov. 10 early debate.

The only current or former governor left to consider is Ohio’s John Kasich. Currently, he’s at 3.7 percent nationally. That’s seventh overall.

Despite appearing in all four prime-time debates – though he performed poorly at the Nov. 10 event – as well as raising and spending millions, and campaigning often in several key early primary states, he’s not making much progress.

Kasich was sitting at 2.5 percent for a while so he’s increased his polling number by about 50 percent. But with Trump at 24.3 percent, Carson at 23.3 percent, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at 12.3 percent, the chance Kasich will emerge as the Republican nominee is currently somewhere between very, very slim and none.

P.S. I’ll be on vacation next week so there won’t be a column next Friday.

A very happy Thanksgiving to all.