Kasich Tests the Waters in New Hampshire

Gov. John Kasich, R-OH, a potential presidential candidate, spoke to a packed house at the Concord GOP’s second Politics & Pie event.

While not a confirmed Republican New Hampshire first-in-the-nation primary candidate yet, Kasich said he was thinking about another run after a relatively lackluster effort in 2000 that never really caught on.

Kasich spoke about his successes, so far, “re-engineering” the state of Ohio after beating an incumbent in 2010 and getting re-elected to second term last year – including turning an $8 billion deficit into a $2 billion surplus while also cutting $3 billion in taxes. He talked about the need to work to stop the recidivism rate among the prison population, protecting the development disabled and mentally ill, as well as bringing people “who live in the shadows” into the economy, by helping them succeed.

“Too much of the time, Republicans talk about economic growth,” he said. “And that’s the end of the story.”

Kasich also spoke about his time in Congress, going after wasteful defense spending, and working with former U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-CT, who was in the crowd, to limit the amount of B2 bombers built to 20 instead of 130 that the Defense Department wanted at the time.

During the question and answer period, Kasich was asked about whether or not he thought fast track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement was a good idea and he said that he thought it was better to have an up or down vote than allowing Congress to vote on every single part of the proposal. While a free-trader, he added that he was also a fair-trader, and wouldn’t allow foreign countries to dump their products in America in an uncompetitive way. He also said it was important to retrofit the Pentagon not to please contractors and campaign contributors but to deal with threats.

Former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rubens, another Republican, asked Kasich what he would do about the “money primary” and the prospect of a handful of wealthy Republican contributors deciding who should be the nominee. Kasich said, “Look, I don’t have any great answer to this problem,” and noted that money would always be in politics. While commending U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, who won the New Hampshire Primary twice, he said McCain-Fiengold campaign finance reform legislation, a hallmark of the Senator’s career, ultimately didn’t work.

“But the question is, ‘How can you mitigate the influence?,’” he said. “You can’t legislate courage with people. What you can do is find leaders who can lead and when leaders lead, without polls and all these other things, you know what it does? It creates momentum and intensity and courage on the part of other people who normally wouldn’t rise to do a better job.”