Kasich mauled after Wisconsin debate

Contrary to his soaring campaign rhetoric,  John Kasich failed to land his plane  at the Republcan debate in Milwaukee. Maybe his Ground Controlled Approach system that he's been trying to perfect in New Hampshire sent him back to Marysville or Lima instead.   He didn't even enjoy a celebratory flyover.

Once again, our agitated guv kept bursting into the conversation (eight times) to the point where one of the others could have fairly called for a restraining order.   GCA landings  notwithstanding, he managed to get few kind words from his political and media critics.   Oh, the non-partisan Associated Press did shelter him from further abuse by simply reporting in the last paragraph that he was "also on the stage".

On the other hand, polling guru Nate Silver likened him to Hensley "Bam'Bam" Meulans.  It's OK if you don't know that Meulans  was a baseball player of sorts who is now the hitting coach of the San Francisco Giants.   Few people know the name, but that seems also to be the lot of Kasich's csmpaign.   (In Iowa, 0 pct.  in the polls)

National Review conservative Jonah Goldberg  said Kasich is "done.  He came across angry, condescending and uprincipled."  It gets worse, but if there are any kids reading this, I'll stop right there.

His problem, as we've noted early in his first term, is his harsh, snappish, rough edges that presents him badly to people beyond the reach of the Columbus Dispatch as a school yard bully.  There had been words that he's  become the "New Kasich", with Biblical references on his lips and expressed concern for the underclass.  Didn't last long because it didn't give his poll numbers a lift.  So it was back to "no more Mr. Nice Guy", which we  already knew he wasn't anyway.

Even in Ohio, his protective media custody has begun  to falter.  The Plain Dealer's Henry Gomez  began his report with "Maybe  John Kasich would have been better off at the kiddie table."  And the Columbus Dispatch, his leading chaperone in Ohio,  headlined: "Kasich heads back to New Hampshire amid unfavorable reviews."

But a Republican Party  that was hospitable to the Tea Party and evangelicals when the latter began to invade it en masse years ago must now contend with the reality so vivified by Kasich's  demolition by the hard right that doubts his conservative purity. No longer is the GOP the only party separated from Democrats.  It must contend with being in third place, at least what's left of it, behind  the fringe that encourages Ben Carson to blatantly lie about so many things and Donald Trump to make history with nonsense about shipping 11 million illegals back to Mexico.

Kasich's empty boast that he knows how to land an airplane (which qualifies him to handle government's course!)  seems so trivial in comparison.

That much the Kasich campaign, as frivolous as it has been at times,  has shown us with his mauling by the current proprietors of the old Republican Party.

There's a big difference between white hat and white hard hat

Re-posted  from Plunderbund

Having declared Ed FitzGerald's gubernatorial campaign DOA on several occasions, the Plain Dealer  still persists in digging into  his distant past in the hope of handing the election to Gov. Kasich by acclimation. In less-polite circles, it's known as piling on.

There's never been any doubt that the PD, the voice of the city's controlling business and religious establishment, was on board with Republican  Kasich way  back when it endorsed him against Democratic incumbent Gov.Ted Strickland.  When I asked an influential source at the paper how they arrived at that decision, he gave me his raw  assessment:

"Kasich scares the shit out of me.  But Strickland never did anything for Cleveland."

 Oh. Another glimpse of Cleveland's fantasy of statehood?

 In today's moment, the contest is no longer about re-electing the governor.   Heavens, no!   It is about having their guy win by such a crushing margin that he can immediately set out to run for the White House. (Kasich denies interest in higher office  about any of his motives other than blistering his opponents in temper tantrums. Meantime, secretive big- money  committees are gathering to pay for his trip to Disney World.

 What a selling point in the heavy-footed swing state.  To suppose that the Blue Collar Kid would be the savior of the party that has lost two presidenticsl races to an African American, well, you might know how those things go, rather softly among his caterers in the state media.   .

So on Saturday,  there was PD politics writer Henry Gomez  talling us on front page that 15 years ago, FitzGerald  didn't mention any  traffic violations when he ran for a seat on Lakewood City Council.  Yes, FitzGerald should have. And in a race that might have been a dead heat, that could have rolled some eyes.

But. hey, what does it matter to be sniffing arournd for more flaws from 15 years ago?  And to have the Columbus politlcal writer writing the story with a Lakewood dateline.

From experience  I can suppose that the Republican leak machine is working overtime while the governor, in one of those white hard hats from the central casting stock room,   is appearing in TV commercials  with his delighted Smilies with a shovel to stress how many jobs he has created in Ohio. (When will he - or the media, for that matter - admit that whatever success he's enjoyed with the state economy can be immeasurably traced to the comeback around the country from the Bush recession?)

Careful, there, Guv.   Your right wing has long insisted that government doesn't create jobs. Even when the governor is decked out in a hard hat and flanked by a bunch of happy-go-lucky Republican achievers.

Understanding Ohio politics, Plain Dealer style

Today's recommended reading:

John Michael Spinelli's  piece  on Plunderbund on how the Plain Dealer has set the table with its own political utensils  not only for the November election but also for 2016 and even 2018.  He reports that PD political writer Henry Gomez has based his crystal ball on hs best five (unidentified) Democratic sources.  Yummy stuff for  guys like Gov. Kasich, the PD's  choice since it endorsed him four years ago.

A Portman in the (gay- marriage) storm

Sen. Rob Portman, a dutifully faithful inhabitant of the Party of No, said "yes" this week and you would have thought that he had just endorsed universal medicaid even for the one percenters.  Instead,  he ended his long opposition to gay marriage, thus becoming the first Republican senator to do so.  Do we need further evidence that Republicans on Capitol Hill have all arrived from the same hatchery?

Portman, an Ohioan,  was clearly influenced to change his mind by the fact that his 21-year-old son Will is gay - a revelation that young Portman advanced to his family a couple of years ago.  But it wasn't until lately that Rob  finally decided that maybe gay marriage isn't such a ghoulish idea after all now that one's sexual preference is shown to be non-partisan and even all in the family.

The response, as you might expect,  has ranged from one end of the political spectrum to the other. Doug Preisse, the gay chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party, told the Columbus Dispatch that he is "pleased and proud" of Portman.  On the other hand,  Speaker John Boehner, who has been in a snit about a lot of things, disagreed with the senator's about-face.

One of the papers that arrives on my breakfast table every morning did see something positive in Portman, declaring in a front-age headline that his new position could mean that  he's a Republican "open to change".  The analysis by Henry Gomez, the Plain Dealer's politics writer, was largely friendly and even noted that Portman was once the reputed trusted economic advisor to George Bush the Second.

As we rummage through the ruins of Bush's economic catastrophy, I doubt that Portman is eager to be reminded of his role.

It is now fair to ask that if the senator's son weren't gay - as are  many sons and daughters  across the land - would he be so willing  to  change his mind?   Let me stretch  my neck way out and say that in this instance, his new form followed function for Portman as a caring father.

And I doubt he will be left  without scars by the social conservatives who control the party at its aorta.  Before his announcement, the senator tweeted back on March 8:  "Today is the last day of National Invasive Species Awareness Week.  It's a great way to focus attention on an important issue for Ohio."

He just did. All the way to his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill.