The love also goes to other Republican luminaries: Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, who held on by his fingernails; Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, ever on the prowl to show that Republicans aren’t going to take it anymore; Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, with his gusto in using Monica Lewinsky against Hillary Clinton; Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, itching to shut down the government over slights real and imagined. Then there are all those who ran noisily against Obama so no one would notice what they would do if elected. Kasich spent almost no time attacking the president, perhaps the only Republican not to do so.
Kasich is suspect as a squish, maybe even the last surviving example of that earlier species of Republican, the compassionate conservative. Despite having the personality of an excitable St. Bernard, he lowered the rhetoric and built coalitions, moving the Buckeye State from 48th in job creation to eighth (second in the Midwest), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment went to 5.6 percent from 9.1 percent. Income growth is 9.8 percent. There’s a budget surplus and an improved debt rating. Poverty decreased three times faster than the national rate, in part because Kasich adopted a version of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the best way to tell the hamburger-flipper and hotel maid that work pays.
He didn’t hug Obama and get drummed out of the party forever, like former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, but he did take his Medicaid expansion dollars. Aides who want the governor to keep his party card have since hedged his position but he is explaining why full repeal of the Affordable Care Act is a Republican pipedream.
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