Kasich gets a major boost to his presidential desires

With his strong second- place finish in Tuesday’s New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, Ohio Gov. John Kasich showed that his brand of campaigning, based on a thoughtful discussion of the issues, still has a place in American politics.

But more than that, the outcome of the first-in-the-nation primary gave Kasich’s bid for the GOP nomination the boost it urgently needed to keep going.

After his very poor showing in the Iowa caucuses – granted, he barely campaigned in that state – New Hampshire had become a make-or-break proposition for him.

As a column on this page in Tuesday’s Vindicator suggested, Kasich was ready to pack his bags and return to Columbus if he failed to make a strong showing.

“If I get smoked here, I’m going (back) to Ohio,” Kasich was quoted as saying in the piece by national syndicated columnist Carl Leubsdorf.

Well, the governor isn’t returning to the Buckeye State; he’s already in South Carolina, where he will continue to present himself to Republican voters as the necessary alternative to frontrunner Donald Trump.

Trump, the billionaire businessman from New York, swept Tuesday’s primary with 35 percent of the vote. Kasich received 16 percent, while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz garnered 12 percent. Cruz won the Iowa caucuses.

As different as the New Hampshire race was from the Iowa contest, the South Carolina primary on Feb. 20 has its own political undercurrents.

To be sure, Kasich’s strong showing will result in contributions flowing into his campaign coffers, and will give him a certain amount of name recognition in South Carolina.

Connect with people

Indeed, the governor distanced himself from the bluster and bombastic rhetoric that has defined the Trump and Cruz campaigns when he spoke Tuesday night about the need for the American people to slow down and connect with family, friends, neighbors and even strangers.

“It takes our hearts to change America,” Kasich said during his nationally televised speech to his supporters. The appeal to our better selves is designed to connect with the Republican voters in South Carolina who tend to be more conservative than the voters in New Hampshire.

“We never went negative because we have more good to sell than to spend our time being critical of somebody else,” Kasich said. He vowed “to reshine America, to restore the spirit of America and to leave no one behind.”

This centrist appeal, compared with the extreme views espoused by Trump, Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, may be a tough sell in the South. Indeed, Kasich’s biggest challenge today is to prove to Republicans voters in the South that he is a conservative – even though he has forged centrist positions on immigration and the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Immigration has become a political lightning rod on the campaign trail, thanks to the TV sound-bite position expressed by Trump.

The billionaire has said repeatedly that if elected president he would deport the 11 million illegal aliens now living in the United States. When pressed for details of how this would be accomplished logistically, Trump has simply said that as a successful businessman he knows how to get things done.

His supporters, who have been swept up by his take-no-prisoners style of politics, are glad to let him get away with one-liners that grab the press’ attention. Not being a traditional candidate – he is self-funding his campaign – seems to be a selling point for a goodly number of Republican voters.

But as we and other newspapers have pointed out in editorials, the U.S. and the world are plagued by serious problems that demand serious solutions.

Kasich, who served in Congress and was the architect of a balanced budget, is running on his experience in government and the private sector. He also drives home the point that bipartisanship is necessary in Washington in order to get things done.

That may not be a winning message in South Carolina or the other Southern states that will have their primaries on March 1, but it needs to be said.

As we suggested in an editorial Sunday, it’s time that GOP voters listened to Kasich.