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The Economist
Lexington
A big win for
John Kasich
Ohio’s Republican governor puts results ahead of ideological purity
November 8, 2014
WHAT is conservatism for? In the election campaign just past, too many
Republicans ignored that question. Instead they went negative,
harnessing the anger of voters who feel that America is going to ruin
and have no faith in President Barack Obama. Senator Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky, the canny Republican who will now lead the Senate, boiled
down his pitch to a yell of revolt against Democrats as eco-warriors,
liberal zealots and government bullies. Further distilled to fit on
McConnell campaign bumper-stickers, this became: “Coal. Guns. Freedom.”
North of Kentucky in the swing state of Ohio, the Republican governor,
John Kasich, secured re-election on November 4th with much duller
bumper-stickers, bearing such slogans as “Kasich works.” No matter. He
won by a staggering margin of 31 points.
Mr Kasich, who is 62, is proud of his conservative achievements:
balancing a budget that faced an $8 billion shortfall when he took
office in 2011, cutting taxes and red tape to boost job-creation. He is
prouder still of what prosperity enables him to do.
In the governor’s telling, conservatism must have a moral purpose.
Republicans should celebrate those who are successful—Americans do not
hate the rich, they want to join them, he likes to say, quoting his
late father, a postman. Conservatives should encourage those already on
their way (he enthuses about job-training schemes and school reforms,
and notes that Ohio is trying to steer more state contracts to
non-white entrepreneurs). Lastly, a prosperous state should use its
resources to help the weak—those who, in a favourite Kasich phrase,
“live in the shadows”, including the mentally ill or drug addicts. He
has worked to keep minor offenders out of prison and to help ex-inmates
find jobs.
In a string of pre-election rallies he spent no time attacking Mr
Obama—an extraordinary omission for a Republican. Instead he urged his
fellow Republicans to canvass Democratic relatives and friends (at a
rally near Lima this drew a “pshaw” of disdain from one activist). Mr
Kasich can sound positively preacher-like, declaring: “When you die and
go to heaven, I don’t know that St Peter is going to ask, did you
balance the budget? He is probably going to ask what you did for the
least of those [around you].”
The governor’s instincts remain thriftily conservative. As a member of
Congress in the 1990s he spent years working towards a balanced federal
budget. Along with Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Chris Christie in New
Jersey and Rick Scott in Florida, he is one of a clutch of Republican
governors, elected in battleground states that voted for Mr Obama in
presidential elections, who then turned round, cut spending and picked
fights with public-sector unions. Back in 2011—when 62% of Ohio voters
rejected Mr Kasich’s plan for union curbs in a crushing referendum
defeat—he seemed the weakest of that pack.
But Mr Kasich learned from that debacle, taking pains to build broad
coalitions for subsequent reforms. This has served him well. His more
purist peers, such as Mr Walker and Mr Scott, also won this week—it was
that kind of an election—but by much thinner margins. As for Mr
Christie, he finds himself struggling to defend the ropey condition of
New Jersey’s finances. As the dust settles, Mr Kasich looks like a
champion for pragmatism.
Not all on the right like Ohio’s 2014 take on compassionate
conservatism. Mr Kasich is under fire for accepting federal money to
expand Medicaid, a government health scheme for the poor—both because
it is a form of socialised medicine and because the expansion is part
of the Obamacare health law (which Mr Kasich says he opposes as a
“top-down” scheme that chills business investment and fails to control
costs). Conservatives were indignant when Mr Kasich defended his
actions as rooted in religious duty, complaining that he was calling
them un-Christian.
Mr Kasich does not duck the fight. His critics seem to feel “guilty”
about something, he ventures. He is unmoved by the charge that he
cannot claim to oppose Obamacare as a whole while using one part of it.
Why not, he asks? Sometimes “practicality” trumps the qualms of
somebody who “lives in an ivory tower”, he says. Ronald Reagan expanded
Medicaid, he notes. Theodore Roosevelt achieved great things: “Was he
doctrinaire?”
Looking for what works
Ohio’s governor is more interested in conservative ends than means.
Aides researched the idea of creating private health-insurance for the
poorest, for instance, but concluded that government control (ie,
Medicaid) would be cheaper. Such pragmatism chimes with voters’
preferences. Many in Ohio, as elsewhere, resent Obamacare as a form of
mandatory redistribution, from the solvent and healthy to the sick and
hard-up. Yet a majority backs public health cover for the very poorest.
It is “cool” that the governor expanded Medicaid, enthuses Everett
Woodard II, a voter at a rally near Toledo who supports both Mr Obama
and Mr Kasich. Society should support those who are “in need, but who
aren’t trying to milk the government”, says Mr Woodard.
Mr Kasich’s cruise to re-election has involved some luck: the campaign
of his Democratic opponent imploded after a series of gaffes. But
political luck rarely occurs in a vacuum. Had the governor looked
vulnerable, he might have drawn a stronger rival.
Mr Kasich is no centrist. He opposes abortion and gay marriage and has
cosied up to the National Rifle Association. He approved a
Republican-friendly gerrymandering of Ohio’s congressional districts.
He can be curmudgeonly: at a Dayton rally he started fretting about
young children who call parents by their first names, citing this as a
symptom of national decline.
But Mr Kasich’s pragmatism outweighs his flaws. He tries to do what
works, not what will win him a standing ovation from conservative
purists. Unlike many Republicans, he sought a positive mandate from
voters this week—and he won it triumphantly in Ohio, the ultimate
bellwether state. The crowded Republican field for the White House in
2016 surely has room for him.
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