18 January 2018/Ohio John Kasich Go-To Guy for “Never Trumpers”; Keeping His Powder Dry for 2020

Ohio John Kasich Go-To Guy for “Never Trumpers”; Keeping His Powder Dry for 2020

Washington Times, 15 January, Kasich’s hounding of Trump suggests Republican primary challenge in 2020

From his perch in the Ohio governor’s mansion, Republican John Kasich, has become a go-to anti-Trump source for the media and often doesn’t even wait for the press to call. Instead, he leaps in to pile on after presidential missteps. Mr. Kasich has pointedly refused to rule out mounting a primary challenge against the president in 2020. He said he wants to maintain a voice in the party because “you never know when duty calls.”“I think what they are doing is exactly what I would do,” said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire based Republican Party strategist who advised Mr. Kasich in 2016. “He is preserving the option.

A poll released last summer found that Mr. Kasich held a 52 percent to 40 percent lead over Mr. Trump among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire — the same state that delivered Mr. Trump his first victory in the 2016 nomination contest.

“Kasich is exactly right to say maybe it works out and maybe it doesn’t, but I am not going to spend every day of my life calculating the odds,” said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. He said he would immediately support Mr. Kasich.

Mr. Kasich refused to endorse Mr. Trump’s candidacy after being one of the last candidates standing against the New York tycoon in the 2016 Republican presidential primary — though that was more because of obstinacy than any surge of support. Mr. Kasich won just a single state: Ohio.

Since then, he has been a thorn in the side of the White House. In the past month, he has written op-eds criticizing Mr. Trump on immigration and foreign policy.

Last week, he piled on Mr. Trump over comments that the president reportedly said about Third World countries during an immigration negotiation at the White House. He demanded an apology from the president.

“These comments are inappropriate, and frankly the party ought to say it’s inappropriate,” Mr. Kasich told CNN.

On policy, Mr. Kasich has been one of the staunchest Republican supporters of Obamacare and even used his veto power to keep Ohio’s Obamacare-fueled expansion of Medicaid on track. He also argued against congressional Republicans’ efforts to repeal and replace the embattled health care law.

Mr. Kasich was lukewarm on the tax cut bill that Republicans have touted as their major accomplishment of 2017. He aired concerns about how the legislation would add to the national debt, which has been a pet issue of his since he played a chief role in balancing the federal budget as chairman of the House Budget Committee in the 1990s