In a speech to the Women's National Republican Club, Republican presidential contender John Kasich explains why he's still in the race despite no possibility of victory: It's because the other two candidates are "not worthy of the office."
"I have stood on a stage and watched with amazement as candidates wallowed in the mud, viciously attacked one another, called each other liars and disparaged each other's character," Kasich said. "Those who continuously push that type of behavior are not worthy of the office they are seeking."
No argument here. I don't think you'd find many national Republicans who wouldn't chew their own foot off rather than be chained to either Donald Trump or—possibly even worse—Ted Cruz. And yet those are who the Republican voters are choosing, which probably should result in a good, long soul-searching by Republican politicians, pundits and other media figures. But won't.
While it's grand that Kasich is staying in the race to give people like David Brooks someone to cling to as their party burns around them, absent from his (perfectly reasonable) attack on the other two candidates is an explanation as to how John Kasich, specifically, thinks he can stop any of it. He's quite put out, to be sure:
Although Kasich never mentioned his GOP competitors by name, his targets were clear. He listed off a string of policy proposals that Donald Trump or Ted Cruz have floated -- including a religious test for immigrants, targeting of Muslim neighborhoods for surveillance, imposing 'draconian' tariffs, dropping out of NATO, instituting a value-added tax, and "whimsical cuts in 'fraud, waste and abuse.'"
Apparently we are all supposed to ignore that whimsical cuts in fraud, waste and abuse has been the Republican battle cry since the Newt Gingrich days. By gum, you can cut any budget by any amount by just getting rid of that fraud, waste and abuse, Every Republican Officeholder Ever has declared. Plans to gut the current tax system and replace it with something that will more specifically gouge the poor have been less omnipresent, but are still hardly new ideas. And the rest is, indeed, what the Republican electorate is voting for. He says targeting of Muslim neighborhoods like it's a bad thing; to the people whose votes he conspicuously isn't getting, they don't have a problem with it. Fox News said it was fine. Fox News said rich people know better than us, and Donald Trump is the richest person they know, ergo he is brilliant; Fox News said Ted Cruz's plan to shut down the government was patriotic 'n stuff, so that makes him a patriot.
And who is Kasich, then? An also-ran. One who is staying in the race just in case the collective Republican base wakes up on the morning of the convention in a cold sweat, only then realizing what they have done. Good luck with that, buddy.