Kasich: the blue-collar kid who really isn't

Re-posted from Plunderbund


John Kasich wants me to know that he grew up in humble surroundings that seeded his deep concern for ordinary, hard-working folks.  He seldom fails to mention in his TV ads that his father was a mailman for 29 years.  His reelection campaign is spending millions of soft-earned contributions from the highest rollers that pay for  these ads.  He's just a regular guy, they tell us - or as National Review defined him,   "a  blue-collar kid from a little town near Pittsburgh called McKees Rocks.  (Historians tell us Alexander McKee was a colonial British Indian agent who was loyal to royalty during the revolution.   That explains everything.)

C'mon, guv. There are countless small-town kids  who were too short on ambition to  be  governor.   There were many, too, who grew up with silver spoons that went on to be the head of state.   As one who was nurtured in the culture of  a small coal-mining town not that far from Kasich's home,  I would have been an awful governor. So what's the point?

Acknowledging Kasich's blue-collarship,  it's worth knowing   he also was the  one who vigorously supported the voter-rejected  bill that would have restricted unions, which sort of  made him the  white-collar kid that he really is. The cascade of dough that has found its way into his campaign suggests his croupiers outshine anyone you'd find in Vegas.

In 1998 as chairman of the House Budget Committee, then-Congressman Kasich  concocted a Federal budget plan  that mercilessly slashed money from welfare, anti-crime and  environmental programs, a proposal that  was even resisted by some Republicans but lauded by his colleague,  then-House Speaker  Newt Gingrich, who as a presidential candidate called for the firing of all school janitors. On the other hand Republican Rep. Michael Castle of Delaware  said Kasich had "overreached in both  policy and political viability".

So this is what Blue Collar kids do when they get to Congress?

Dave Hess.  retired Capitol  Hill reporter for Knight-Ridder newspapers, wrote more recently that Kasich's slogan of "a new way and new day" was  the "typical  Republican euphemism  that adorns all of the party's proposals and policies...to ensure a steady flow of election year lucre by preserving the wealth of the wealthy..."

I do want to thank the governor  for one small matter.  As one forever interested in the meaning of the written word, I  can now add a new synonym to the definition of "blue collar kid."