John Kasich said something odd during a recent appearance on Face the Nation, and I'm not just referring to "And when I left Washington, we had a $5 trillion surplus." I'm referring to this:
But what I have found, as you know, I'm now -- my campaign has gone on for slightly more than just two months, John, and you know I'm in the top tier in New Hampshire, I'm beginning to rise in Iowa. So if it -- if what I'm saying is not true, then I should be -- I should be getting out of the race, which I am not because I think we're making really good progress and connecting.
What question must he have been responding to? Why he's staying in the race when he's doing so poorly? No, he was asked about a "climate" where experienced governors are getting nowhere in the GOP primary polls. He responded by justifying staying in the race. It seems that was the question he was expecting. Why would you be preparing that answer if you're not having to convince the voters in the donor primary that you're still a viable candidate?
Actually, I expect Rand Paul to be the next to drop out following news that a supporting superPAC has decided his campaign is a lost cause, but maybe Kasich won't be far behind --- especially given that his claims abut the polls are pretty much just happy talk. He's sure stuck down in the milieu in the national polling, though he referred specifically to "beginning to rise Iowa" and being "in the top tier in New Hampshire". That's a pretty generous definition of "top tier", and apparently he thinks "rise" doesn't include any upward motion from a low point.
Friday's Pew Poll even has Kasich below the soon-to-depart Paul, down in positively Walkerian levels of barely registering.
The thing that annoys me is hearing liberals saying Kasich seems like the reasonable one. Is there some requirement to pick out a less-clownish clown from the passengers of the clown car? Yes, it's true he's given conservatives some reason to dislike him, like when he kept saying in the second debate that foreign policy problems need to include working with allies, and he's one of the few Republican governors who accepted the Medicaid expansion to cover the people who fell in the hole between Medicaid eligibility and eligibility for private plan subsidies. He even cited the bible in defense of a liberal belief. Wrong party for that.
However, something to bring to the attention if anyone saying he's not so bad, when Kasich was in the US House, he wrote the law restricting food stamp eligibility for childless adults to just three months in any three year period. This was too harsh even for some of his fellow Republicans, so states were allowed to seek waivers if unemployment was high enough. As governor, Kasich accepted the waiver --- for some poor Ohioans. He sought waivers of overwhelmingly white rural counties, but excluded counties with large minority populations.
In 2014, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) had the option to waive time limits on food stamps for the entire state. Due to a struggling economy and high unemployment, Ohio had qualified for and accepted this statewide waiver from the US Department of Agriculture every year since 2007, including during most of Kasich's first term as governor. But this time, Kasich rejected the waiver for the next two years in most of the state's 88 counties. His administration did accept them for 16 counties in 2014 and for 17 counties in 2015. Most of these were rural counties with small and predominantly white populations. Urban counties and cities, most of which had high minority populations, did not get waivers.
When you have to temper compassion with fiscal austerity, you recognize you can't help everybody, so ... just help the white rural areas. "So if it -- if what I’m saying is not true, then I should be — I should be getting out of the race ... " I have a feeling the donors might soon agree.
#ThisGuyWantsToBePresident
cross-posted at MN Progressive Project