The Unbearable Smugness of John Kasich

Carryout at 17 East Ohio
Carryout at 17 East Ohio…

Speaking of John Kasich, his path to the nomination seems unlikely, especially as more attention gets paid to him and his teeth-grinding.

Last summer Elizabeth Nolan Brown wrote:

If you talk to Ohioans—and Ohio is my home state, so I do—you’ll find that most people don’t really like Kasich, not even Republicans. They might like his stance on spending, or taxes, or abortion, but Kasich himself? Arrogant. Condescending. Manipulative. 

In Politico …, Alex Isenstadt explores what he calls Kasich’s “anger management problem.”

Kasich has “a resume seemingly tailor-made for a serious run for the Republican nomination: blue-collar upbringing, congressional budget hawk, Fox News commentator, investment banker, successful two-term governor of Ohio,” writes Isenstadt. “But there’s just one problem, according to interviews with dozens of those who’ve worked in politics alongside him at various points over the last several decades: his short fuse.” Isenstadt collects myriad, anonymous examples of people (including wealthy donors) that Kasich has pissed off with his prickly personality. Even Sen. John McCain—not exactly known as a model of decorum and restraint—has spoken of Kasich’s “hair-trigger temper.”

Kasich’s crew is trying to play this potential liability as a sign of the governor’s authenticity and willingness to call the proverbial spade a spade, something they say voters will recognize and appreciate. I guess we’ll see. There’s no doubt that shtick plays well with the GOP base (see Bush the second) but Kasich’s particular brand of brimstone seems more pouty narcissist than rhetorical rebel or iconoclast

(click here to continue reading The Unbearable Smugness of John Kasich – Hit & Run : Reason.com.)

and she concludes:

The thing about John Kasich is, he’s kind of a jerk,” wrote Molly Ball at The Atlantic in April. It’s quick becoming the conventional wisdom about Kasich—whom, Ball informs us, has a Machiavelli quote pinned to his office wall.

I spent several days with Kasich in Ohio in February, and during that time he told me, repeatedly, that he did not read The Atlantic—and his wife didn’t, either. He said that my job, writing about politics and politicians, was “really a dumb thing to do.” … At a Kasich press conference I attended at a charter school in Cleveland, he interrupted several speakers, wandered off to rummage on a nearby teacher’s desk as he was being introduced, and gleefully insulted the Cleveland Browns, to a smattering of boos.

Kasich has previously said that he does not read Ohio newspapers, either (they don’t provide him with an “uplifting experience”). 

Kasich may have been “the Paul Ryan of his day” when he was in Washington, but perhaps the reform-minded yet combative upstart who won’t take no for an answer has a shelf life. Politicians are supposed to evolve and become more effective with time, and what can be admirable and ambitious at 40 just seems immature, churlish, and curmudgeonly by 63.  

(click here to continue reading The Unbearable Smugness of John Kasich – Hit & Run : Reason.com.)

(more on that weird claim not to read newspapers in Ohio via Vince Grzegorek)

The governor of Ohio doesn’t read Ohio newspapers.

That’s fact, straight from the mouth of John Kasich himself. The exact quote: “I don’t read newspapers in the State of Ohio.”

We’ll forgive his feeble grasp on the English language and assume he didn’t mean that he doesn’t read newspapers while he’s physically within the geographic boundaries of Ohio, and that he really meant he doesn’t read newspapers that are based in Ohio.

One could infer from the wording that he at least reads some newspapers, just not ones headquartered in the Buckeye State, but that’s still a flabbergasting statement.

Why doesn’t he read them? Via Ohio Capital Blog and Plunderbund, it’s because it doesn’t give him an “uplifting experience.”

(click here to continue reading John Kasich Doesn’t Read Ohio Newspapers | Scene and Heard: Scene’s News Blog | Cleveland Scene.)

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