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 If history can be a guide, Kasich (pronounced KAY-sik) may best
fit the mold of Arizona Senator John McCain, a self-described
maverick who won the party's nomination in 2008 only to lose the
election to Democrat Barack Obama.
For his part, McCain parted from Republican Party orthodoxy on the
hot-button issue of immigration. He ran strong in the early
nominating contest in New Hampshire. Kasich’s top strategist, John
Weaver, is a veteran of McCain's team.
“I have never been the choice of the Republican establishment,”
Kasich, 63, said in a Reuters interview on Tuesday. He vows to
appeal to minorities and the poor, groups that steer clear of the
party according to opinion polls.
“Could the Republican Party be more shaped on the basis of what I
think if I am picked as president? Absolutely. The Republican Party
would absolutely change,” he said.
 Although hardly a household name, Kasich is one of the most
experienced politicians among the 17 Republican hopefuls. He has 18
years of legislative experience in Congress and now is serving a
second term as governor of the seventh largest state.
At age 26, he won election to the Ohio Senate.
NEW HAMPSHIRE A KEY
New Hampshire, which on Feb. 9 becomes the second state to hold a
nominating contest (after Iowa), is crucial to Kasich, who needs
momentum to draw more media attention and fundraising dollars as the
campaign moves into other states.
Kasich is competing for the same bloc of voters and donors
nationally as the quintessential candidate of the establishment,
former Florida governor Bush, the kin of two American presidents.
Though Kasich lags in national polling - 2 percent in the most
recent Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll to 38 percent for real-estate
mogul and reality-TV star Trump - he is beginning to draw national
attention for his surging New Hampshire numbers.
An NBC/Marist opinion poll released over the weekend showed him
running in second place with 12 percent to Trump's 28 percent.
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson had 11 percent and Bush placed
fourth with 8 percent.
While not always staking out establishment positions, Kasich is
racking up endorsements from prominent New Hampshire Republicans
such as Doug and Stella Scamman, longtime activists, and Tom Rath,
the state's former attorney general.
Those who back him view his experience and his pledge to widen the
party’s appeal to Hispanic and low-income voters as strengths that
could help Republicans better compete in the November 2016
presidential election against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic
front-runner.
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Even when pressed by reporters, however, Kasich refuses to call out
his rivals by name. Instead his eyes are fixed on what he says is
his biggest problem: voters' unfamiliarity with him.
Asked at a national security forum in New Hampshire his view of
other Republicans' promises to tear up the nuclear accord with Iran
on their first day as president, Kasich paused. He said he would not
name a single rival because reporters in the room would highlight
his comment as an attack.
PULLING UP A CHAIR TO CHAT
Like McCain, Kasich shows a willingness to be accessible, sitting
for scores of national interviews and, during his lunch break at
Concord's Barley House, pulling up a chair to chat with a quartet of
reporters.
As governor Kasich accepted federal dollars to expand Medicaid, a
joint federal and state program to help low-income Americans cover
medical costs. While his stance may be anathema to the far right, he
embraces it as the right thing to do for the poor.
He walks a fine line on social issues: He accepts laws on same-sex
marriage as final but talks on the campaign trail about the
importance of faith along the campaign trail. He supports a pathway
to legal status in the United States for undocumented immigrants but
wants to build a fence on the southern border with Mexico.
“When I ran for governor I just kicked the door down, and the
establishment was disorganized and they couldn’t stop me,” he said
when asked about his political career.
Extending the metaphor, Kasich said: “Most of my career I’ve been
trying to knock down the walls to get in the city. Now I’m in the
city, and that kind of troubled me for a while till I figured out
that I could still be a reformer even though I’m running the city.”
(Reporting by Erin McPike; Editing by Howard Goller)
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