A last stand for Kasich?

ROCHESTER, N.H.

The contrast couldn’t be more striking.

No denunciations of immigrants or vows to build walls. No pledge to rip out Obamacare by the roots (though he’d replace it). No denunciations of the Iranian arms deal or working with Democrats.

In a year when most Republican rivals have vied to match front-runner Donald Trump’s often outrageous proposals, highly personalized attacks and establishment bashing, Ohio Gov. John Kasich stands out as a voice of moderation and compromise.

“Anybody can come around and make a promise: we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that, we’re going to have a 10 percent flat tax, we’re going to abolish the IRS,” Kasich told several dozen people who attended his 87th town meeting at an American Legion hall in this eastern New Hampshire town.

“That’s not going to happen,” he continued. “So I’m here giving you what I would need to do to govern, not to get elected.” And he asked, “You don’t think we can solve these problems without both parties, do you?”

But Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s close third in last week’s Iowa caucuses threatens Kasich’s hope of emerging as the top establishment candidate in today’s New Hampshire primary. Kasich, who largely ignored Iowa, was eighth of 11.

He professes to be unconcerned, telling a Bloomberg Politics Breakfast Briefing, “The media is going to pump this for a couple days and then we’re going to see.”

‘Negative crap’

Kasich’s campaign, which stresses his conservative credentials in balancing the federal budget in Congress and governing Ohio the past six years, isn’t totally positive. On Monday, he condemned “negative crap” in the media advertising of rivals Chris Christie and Jeb Bush. That night, his independent Super PAC, New Day for America, aired a television ad showing Bush encased in mud.

But his approach enabled the Ohio governor to rise in mid-January to second in the Real Clear Politics average of New Hampshire polls, and he leaves many hitherto undecided voters with positive vibes.

Most New Hampshire newspapers have endorsed him as have The Boston Globe and The New York Times, which called Kasich “the only plausible choice for Republicans tired of the extremism and inexperience on display in this race.”

But Rubio’s strong Iowa showing has complicated Kasich’s effort to beat the Florida senator, along with Bush and Christie. “They all have to beat each other to have an opportunity to consolidate mainstream voters and donors,” said Fergus Cullen, a former state GOP chairman who backs Kasich.

“What we have to do is get to March 15,” said veteran New Hampshire pol Tom Rath. That’s when the primary calendar moves to Kasich’s home state of Ohio and other Midwestern bastions and when winning candidates can win all of a state’s delegates, rather than dividing them proportionally.

But that not only requires finishing second here, it means doing well in Massachusetts and Vermont and surviving primaries in such conservative strongholds as South Carolina on Feb. 20, and the many Southern states including Texas on March 1.

“If I get smoked here,” Kasich said in Newmarket, “I’m going (back) to Ohio.”

Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.