Friday, February 12, 2016

A second strike against the governor

It's not unusual for good news in political life to be  quickly followed by bad  news. Gov.  Kasich's rise to second (!) place in New Hampshire earned him celebrity status in the national media and the Republican establishment frantically groping for   an escape from  their captivity by billionaire demagogue Donald Trump.

On that score, Kasich's shifty stance on many issues  in which he avoided menacing talk with a fixed smile  worked in his favor.  But it comes at the price of closer media attention, at least until  somebody  more palatable can be found on the practice squad.

So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the Washington Post burst out of the soundproof media  box with a strong accounting of the  education "mess" in  Ohio on the governor's watch.  It included a dissenting voice on the management of charter schools that Kasich  is fondly supporting.

That was the first volley.  Today, 24 hours later,  the often-friendly Plain Dealer recalled Kasich's viperish description of a  cop that stopped his car as an "idiot".  It said the "ill-advised" comment is now going viral on social media.  The impetus for the revived story is coming from police organizations even though it happened in 201l.

 That incident  has then reminded everyone that Kasich had just taken office and was in a snappish mood  about anything that he didn't like. - including public unions.  His unpopular support of union restrictions landed on the state ballot  and was crushed.

He's tried to overhaul his bullish  behavior for his presidential run.   But things have a way of catching up.  As Oscar Wilde once wrote:

"No man is  rich enough to buy back his past."

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