Gov. Kasich enters GOP White House race touting 'skills and experience'

Gov. Kasich enters GOP White House race touting 'skills and experience'

Published July 21, 2015 FoxNews.com

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NOW PLAYINGJohn Kasich's 2016 presidential strategy

Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Tuesday announced he will join the 2016 Republican primary race for the White House, telling voters he has the “skills and experience” to restore the American dream.

“I am here to ask you for your prayers, your support, your efforts because I have decided to run for president of the United States,” said Kasich, a two-term governor who also spent 18 years in Congress.

The 63-year-old Kasich became the 16th GOP candidate -- and perhaps not the last -- when he declared his candidacy at the Ohio State University.

“The American Dream is pivotal to the future of our country,” he said. “But I have to tell you, a lot of people are not sure that dream is still possible, not sure that dream is still alive. … I have the skills and experience” to restore that dream.

Kasich, known for his bluntness, was overwhelmingly re-elected last year to a second term as governor, winning bipartisan support for cutting taxes and improving the state economy.

Prior to becoming governor, Kasich served in the U.S. House from 1983 to 2001, where in 1995 he ascended to chairman of the chamber’s Budget committee. In 1997, he helped seal a federal balanced budget deal.

Kasich also made a White House bid in 2000, but dropped out before the Iowa Straw Poll.

"He's certainly going to be a viable candidate," Republican campaign strategist Ed Rollins told FoxNews.com on Monday. "No one's more qualified than he is. No one has more knowledge about the federal government. ... He was an extraordinary governor."

Kasich enters the race facing long odds. But he will likely use the situation to his advantage -- telling voters he understands tough challenges, considering he was the only Republican elected to Congress in 1982, and that he's eager to lead the fight for the middle class.

He was also the youngest person to be elected to the Ohio senate, when he won a seat in 1979 as a 26-year-old.

On Monday, Kasich was ranked No. 12 among the top 15 GOP candidates with 1.5 percent of the vote, according to an averaging of polls by the nonpartisan website RealClearPolitics.com. Former New York Gov. George Pataki is not listed in the poll average. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore is also expected to enter the GOP race.

No Republican has won the White House without carrying Ohio.
Kasich, a former Fox News Channel commentator, is now one of four governors in the GOP field -- joining New Jersey’s Chris Christie, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker.

One of his biggest challenges will be getting into the top tier of Republican candidates to qualify for some early debates. And he must convince primary voters who question his conservative credentials that his decision to expand ObamaCare in Ohio was a moral imperative to help the poor.

Unions that turned back an effort by Kasich and fellow Republicans to limit public workers' collective bargaining rights say Kasich's successes have come at a cost to local governments and schools, and that new Ohio jobs lack the pay and benefits of the ones they replaced. They plan a protest outside Tuesday's launch.

Kasich’s parents were killed by a drunken driver in 1987, an event that purportedly strengthened his religious faith. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Ohio State in 1974.

As a freshman political science major in 1970, he audaciously wrote a letter that landed him a 20-minute audience with President Richard Nixon.

New Day for America, the group supporting Kasich's White House bid, recently said it has raised more than $11.5 million in just over eight weeks.

That's in line with several of the better known Republican presidential contenders, though former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's team recently announced a fundraising haul exceeding $114 million.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...oin-gop-field/

Kasich defends Medicaid expansion in Ohio


Kasich cites Bible for ObamaCare expansion -
The Hill: “Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a likely Republican presidential candidate, on Tuesday defended his decision to accept federal dollars for a Medicaid expansion as part of ObamaCare…He defended the decision as rooted in Biblical teaching of helping the ‘downtrodden,’ and he pushed back against others in his party that panned Obama’s Medicaid expansion as bloating the size of the federal government. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is the only other Republican governor in the field to expand Medicaid.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/gop-primaries/247895-kasich-defends-medicaid-expansion-in-ohio

July 14, 2015, 04:23 pm

Kasich defends Medicaid expansion in Ohio

By Ben Kamisar

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Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a likely Republican presidential candidate, on Tuesday defended his decision to accept federal dollars for a Medicaid expansion as part of ObamaCare.

“There is no money in Washington, it’s money we sent from our state of Ohio to Washington that I was able to bring back to help the mentally ill get on their feet,” he said in an interview with CNBC.

“There are more and more Republican governors who are getting their toes in the water and some of them sneaking into the water to do exactly what we are doing here. So I was just an early mover, but the fact is, overall, we have a healthier society.”

He defended the decision as rooted in Biblical teaching of helping the “downtrodden," and he pushed back against others in his party that panned Obama’s Medicaid expansion as bloating the size of the federal government.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is the only other Republican governor in the field to expand Medicaid. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry chose not to.

“Sometimes people say, 'well Kasich is not a conservative,' ” he said.

“I balanced budgets, cut taxes by more than anybody in the country, have a history of doing that. But yet I also think we have to reach out to people who live in the shadows. Sometimes I don't know that everybody gets it. Change is difficult, it always is.”

Kasich also said his time working for Lehman Brothers just before the 2008 financial crash made him concerned about a creeping “greed factor” that can lead to “mistakes.”

While he cautioned that the conduct that led to the financial crash might not have been a crime, he didn't fully absolve those responsible.

“Just because you do something that's greedy that can end up in failure doesn't mean you committed a crime,” he said.

“But you know what? There's a judgment that comes later, about how many people get hurt. And frankly, that's a pretty tough judgment in my opinion."

Kasich has flirted with a presidential bid for a while and will announce his late entry next week. He’s currently well behind in the polls with less than a month before the first debate.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...ansion-in-ohio