Would be Mary Taylor could be governor

Gov. Kasich's two-year active political campaign emerging from recycled presidential ambition is apparently having little useful effect in impressing a national audience.  He is hardly an asterisk in the national polls.  Maybe it's something about his curb appeal.

It's largely a media-driven campaign with the national pundits making scant  effort to scratch below the surface of the boastful blue-collar kid whose father, we are forever told,  was a mailman.

Questions arise.  Is he a RINO?  A born-again, will he run out of Biblical references  before he runs out of money.  Did he really  balance a federal budget that was zillions  in the red when he was in Congress?  Is he,  as he told folks in New Hampshire, "not at war with organized labor"? .  This is from the same fellow who collaborated with fallen presidential candidate Scott Walker to restrict public unions.  His Ohio gambit perished at the ballot box by a million votes.

And will he find a way to escape the  charter school scandal in Ohio that he helped create with his disgraced cronies and increased funding? The epic mess is being reported across the land.

Still,  in all of those days when  Ohio State's football team isn't on the field,   will he manage to convince the voter next door that he is really a compassionate Mr. Goodwrench, prayers and all.

It's an environment in which Ohio political writers are reaching for a "what if"  tale of a politcal legacy leading to his princess-in-waiting, Lt.. Gov. Mary Taylor.  I mean, one published report began so speculatively  with, "It's a minor change.  But it could be the first tangible move in what could be a crowded Republican race for governor in 2018. (Italics added)

Two "could be's"  in a single sentence  is  enough evidence of desperate  analysis of "stuff" happening.  We move on with the media speculation:

If Kasich is elected president, or could be not, Taylor has given strong notice that she will not only succeed him to fill out his term, but she also is set on running for the full-term job. She says she's "giving the idea serious serious consideration". But you know how that goes.

Next: That  would be true if Kasich is given a big job in a new Republican administration.

Taylor  says she's a great big Kasich fan and, "I think what's happening here in Ohio can be directly  attributed to him and his leadership.

Obviously she didn't have the charter school stuff in mind at the moment.