As we watched the March 3 Republican debate together, a friend from New Jersey asked me why Gov. John Kasich was polling so poorly, since he is certainly the most qualified of the remaining candidates for high office.
Kasich has served 18 years in the House of Representatives, including six years as chairman of the House Budget Committee. More recently, he has been the hugely successful and popular governor of Ohio, winning a landslide re-election in a traditional swing state, turning an $8 billion deficit into a $2 billion surplus, driving unemployment down from 9.4 to 5.1 percent and pushing criminal justice reform that led to one of the lowest rates of recidivism in the nation. Clearly, this is a man who has what it takes to be a great president.
Four or eight years ago, anyone with these credentials could have handily secured the Republican nomination. But that time has come and gone. Now any of the prospects who can be branded as "establishment candidates" are associated with the gridlock in Washington and perceived distance from the average voter that has driven this unprecedented wave of political frustration.
While there are still many Republican voters who would rather try to reform the government than upend it, the voices of anger and their reckless promises of instant change have become dominant this cycle. When Kasich and his years of experience working on the federal budget is left in the dust by Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, whose tax plans are projected to markedly increase deficits if elected, it is clear that Republican voters have largely given up on the kind of gradual change and compromise that characterizes our political system.
However, in a recent conversation I had with two relatives about the Republican candidates, they preferred Kasich to Rubio, despite Rubio's marketing himself similarly to moderates and voters who are practical rather than idealistic. When I asked them why, they explained that Kasich has much more experience and has a record of success he can point to, while Rubio is largely unproven. Kasich voters are willing to vote for a man who trails by an insurmountable margin in the polls because they believe he is the most qualified.
While I still hold to my endorsement of Rubio, I highly respect the opinion of voters like these. And in any other primary season, I would urge voters to, like them, cast their ballot for the man who they think will do the best job. I do think that Kasich would do a great job if elected president, and, as he said at the debate, he does lead Hillary Clinton by the widest margin.
But this year he has no chance of triumphing in the primary. The group of pragmatic, moderate Republicans he hoped to appeal to has already been largely claimed by Rubio. His only chance is a brokered convention. That’s why Mitt Romney was on the right track when he recommended last week that Kasich urge his supporters to vote for Rubio in his home state of Florida and Rubio tell his backers to vote for Kasich in his home state of Ohio.
With Trump’s unprecedented takeover of the Republican party, the primaries have devolved to a point at which a vote cast for the lower-polling candidates is practically a vote for Trump. With the threshold limits and winner-take-all setups in the next rounds of states, if the base of moderate conservatives remains split between Rubio and Kasich, they will end up forking delegates over to Trump. To prevent the nomination of a completely unorthodox candidate, completely unorthodox tactics are in order.