Kasich says he's surging from the pack

As Gov. Kasich takes a deep breath and another gulp of he-man supplements for his 2016 stretch run to the New Hampshire primary,  the reports arriving from the front tell us that he's preparing to wind up  his $11.5 million TV ad campaign in the Granite State with a $5 million blitz from his piggy bank.

Kasich gleefully told ABC's This Week ''I''m surging,  as you know." But like so many of his claims that we didn't know,  it's the exhuberant side of him that leaves us wondering what his political fortune-telling  is all about as the polls tell us otherwise.  Again praising himself for his alleged historic success story in Ohio (to make the state great again?) he credited his ground game with  being the best among  all of the others'  campaigns,  adding that he has provided specific solutions to problems in the state.  "We just don't pontificate and have a bunch of rhetoric," he says of what he has called his Ohio Miracle.

Although money is supposed to solve most campaign challenges, he's counting on the final splurge of $5 million to put him across with the voters.  But there's evidence that a candidate must also have plenty  of curb appeal to give the money any chance to work.

Try these numbers: As history tells us, Rudy Giuliani spent more than $50 million per delegate.  John McCain bought each of his for $57,000.   And who can forget that John Connally, a Democrat who turned Republican, didn't earn more than one for  the $11 million he spent per  delegate in his failed 1980 presidential campaign?

OK, guv.  Splash your cash in a so-called decisive state where there are only 767,400 registered voters, no more than 30 pct. of whom are Republicans.      The only guaranteed investment benefit is that it will feed  the TV ad producers a lot more than the candidate ,  whether you pontificate or not.