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Kasich delivers a ho hum speech
On the side
The Mahoning County Republican Party is moving its headquarters to 8131 Market St., the Adamas Square Plaza in Boardman.
The location is being renovated and should open in May, said party Chairman Mark Munroe. The party left its old headquarters at 621 Boardman-Canfield Road in Boardman because the owner is trying to sell the building. Mahoning Republicans used that location for about two decades.
The Area Agency on Aging 11 honored state Sen. Capri Cafaro of Liberty, D-32nd, with its advocate of the year award.
During her 10 years in the state Legislature, Cafaro said, “I have worked to ensure that [those 60 years of age and older] are kept safe and have access to the specialized healthcare they often need.”
I don’t know if Ohio Gov. John Kasich could have looked and sounded more detached and not interested during his State of the State address.
The speech was more of an obligation than anything else. Kasich was the last governor in the country to give a State of the State address this year.
Kasich read the speech from notes on a lectern at the Peoples Bank Theatre in Marietta, barely looking up to make eye contact with his audience. The Wednesday speech lasted close to an hour and he took off like he had a plane to catch.
That’s a very real possibility as Kasich campaigned about 16 hours later in the Bronx and ended Thursday with a town hall in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Kasich is continuing his long-shot campaign for the Republican nomination for president despite gaining no traction with GOP voters.
On Thursday, his campaign sent an email actually bragging about a poll of New York Republicans that has him losing to front-runner Donald Trump 52 percent to 25 percent with 17 percent backing U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
The campaign also continues to point to polls that show he is the strongest Republican among the three remaining candidates to beat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton among general election voters.
Despite those polls, Republicans – except in his home state of Ohio – have soundly rejected Kasich in every single primary and caucus held to date.
Whatever momentum he was supposed to get after the Ohio win on March 15 hasn’t translated to anything but embarrassing defeats for the governor.
Kasich campaigned hard in Michigan – that state’s primary was a week before Ohio – and he finished in third place out of four candidates.
He was supposed to be competitive in Wisconsin, as well as other Midwest states. He finished last in Wisconsin with 14 percent of the vote, losing the state to Cruz.
Kasich’s campaign strategy is to take the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland using the theory that candidates can’t win the presidency without being victorious in Ohio.
However, just because a candidate loses the Ohio primary doesn’t mean he can’t win the state in the general election.
You don’t have to go that far back for an example. Clinton smoked Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary in Ohio, but Obama won the state during that year’s general election.
How poor is Kasich performing? U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who quit the presidential race March 15 after getting soundly beaten in his home state’s primary that day, has more delegates than Kasich.
Rubio has 171 compared to Kasich’s 143. Of that 143, 66 are from Kasich’s winner-take-all-delegates win in Ohio.
Kasich has spent a lot of his second term as governor, which started Jan. 10, outside Ohio. He spent the week before Ohio’s primary and the night of the primary in the state campaigning nonstop all over it.
During his State of the State address, Kasich alluded to his presidency a few times.
“As you know, I’ve done a bit of traveling in recent months – here in Ohio and a few other places – and in many places, I’ve actually met people who have been struggling with some of the same challenges we faced right here in our beloved state,” he said.
Toward the end of the speech, that lasted about an hour, Kasich said, “I’ve traveled all across the country, and I’m always reminded of one thing again and again. There’s no place like Ohio. There’s no place like home.”
When it came to unveiling new proposals, something traditionally done during the State of the State address, Kasich provided very little.
But at least it was a quick speech.
Kasich said he wants to add arts to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education to create STEAM, and talked of fighting drug abuse and addiction.
At the top of Kasich’s list of priorities is tax cuts.
He called for speeding up the implementation of reductions approved last year to now.
Kasich added: “We are going to come with another comprehensive tax reform package early next year with more tax relief and reforms to better align our tax code with the way Ohio works in today’s economy. And that fundamentally means lower income taxes.”
The governor didn’t provide details of that proposal.
But, at least in his mind, he won’t be around next year to propose it as he’ll be president.