Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced Wednesday he is bowing out of the 2016 race, having won fewer delegates than two candidates who have already dropped out. Kasich’s hopes of being crowned at a contested RNC convention all but evaporated with Trump’s win in Indiana on Tuesday.
For the past year, Kasich has marketed himself as a kinder, gentler, more reasonable alternative to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. “Somebody’s got to be the adult,” he told the editorial board of the NY Daily News. He later told a talk radio host, “I consider myself the prince of light and hope.” Many pundits echoed this narrative, labeling him a moderate and a “model for a softer brand of conservatism.”
I consider myself the prince of light and hope.
Yet Kasich’s legislative history and policy platforms don’t bear this out. In any other election, he would have been considered extreme.
As governor of Ohio, Kasich drastically slashed income taxes on the wealthy and entirely eliminated the estate tax, while increasing the tax burden for the poorest 20 percent of the state. To balance his state’s budget, he pushed through deeply unpopular cuts to city budgets, which led to tens of thousands of workers getting laid off. The only other Republican governor in the nation to push such extreme tax and spending cuts was Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, who signed a budget that left the state with a massive deficit, shuttered schools, and kicked 15,000 people off of food stamps.
Kasich also vowed, if elected president, to cut taxes for rich individuals and corporations and gut programs that aid the poor. He estimated the plan would lose the government about $800 billion in revenue.
In 2011, he signed a law barring many union members in his state from collectively bargaining, but a “voter rebellion” overturned it a few months later.
When asked about how to address the last four decades of wage stagnation, which have led to workers making less now than they did in 1973, Kasich denied the problem.
Kasich has also shown little interest in the environment, portraying the fight against terrorism and against climate change as mutually exclusive. He campaigned on a plan to gut Social Security benefits for the elderly, and told a concerned voter in New Hampshire to “get over it.”
Kasich Would Let States Decide Whether To Punish Women For AbortionHealth by CREDIT: AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh When GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said there should be “some form of punishment…thinkprogress.orgAnd even compared to his fellow candidates, Kasich’s record on women’s health was in a class of its own. As governor, he signed a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, which could cut off access to health care for millions of women in his state. He signed abortion restrictions into law that go much farther than other states, and said states should be allowed to determine whether and how to punish women who have the procedure.
While he never openly mused about a TV anchor’s menstruation, Kasich made a habit of making insulting comments to women on the campaign trail. He recently told a student asking about his plan to address campus sexual assault: “Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol.” He also told a young woman trying to ask him about immigration policy, “I’m sorry, I don’t have any tickets for Taylor Swift,” boasting that “women who left their kitchens” helped him win the governor’s race, and answering a question from a woman about his Vice Presidential preference with, “Are you available? You look great tonight.” He also shared that he believes the gender pay gap exists because women do not have the “skills” and “experience” men bring to the workplace.
Kasich will have plenty of work cut out for him when he returns to Ohio, where a near-majority of voters are irate that he’s been spending most of his time on the campaign trail instead of running the state. He must also prepare to host the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July, where Donald Trump will be crowned the nominee and where law enforcement is preparing for mass protests.