The problem is that conservatives themselves don’t seem to think that Kasich is their conservative, and Kasich probably doesn’t either. Let’s consider his performance in Tuesday night’s debate. For the second straight time, Kasich, for whatever reason—perhaps bad advisers!—found it in his interest not just to deliver unorthodox positions on prominent issues but to do so in a stylistically irritating way.

Kasich, standing at an end podium, interjected whenever he felt like it, frequently speaking over the moderators. He challenged Donald Trump on one of Trump’s most popular policy positions among conservatives: his “plan” to construct a wall on the southern border and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. “Think about the families; think about the children,” he said. “Come on, folks, we know you can’t pick them up and ship them across the border. It’s a silly argument. It’s not an adult argument. It makes no sense.” He criticized other candidates for having “$11 trillion, $12 trillion tax cuts that will put our kids way deeper in the hole than they have been at this point,” as if Republican voters have ever cared about the budgetary harm of massive tax cuts.