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Kasich: We’re No. 2!

Republican savors second-place status while describing public life as 'crap'

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John Kasich said public life can be a load of 'crap.' (Al Drago/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John Kasich said public life can be a load of 'crap.' (Al Drago/CQ Roll Call file photo)

Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign likes to look on the bright side of being far behind in a race for an office he describes as “crap.”  

“With the release of today’s NBC/WSJ poll showing John Kasich in 2nd in New York, it’s clear Kasich is the strongest alternative candidate to [Donald Trump] in upcoming primaries,” Monday’s release from the campaign trumpeted after that poll showed Kasich behind Trump by 33 points, 54-21 percent. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was in third place in the poll, with 18 percent among likely New York Republican primary voters.  

And “most” polling shows Kasich running second to Trump in upcoming contests in heavily Democratic Maryland and the Ohio governor’s state of birth, Pennsylvania, according to his release.  

Kasich has virtually no mathematical chance at securing enough delegates to clinch the GOP nomination before the convention. Of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination, Kasich has 143, Trump has 743 and Cruz has 545.  

Kasich, who has only won one state, his own, so far, acknowledges his strategy of hoping for a contested convention is driving some Republicans nuts. But in an interview with the New York Daily News editorial board last week, he said he was obligated to follow through, even if campaigning, and being a public servant, was a grind.  

“I’ve just got to do whatever the hell I can do to make this place a little bit better. So when I’m done with this crap, I can sit back in my chair and say, ‘I did everything I could do,'” he said.  

Maybe Kasich really is tapping into the GOP mainstream. After all, Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., described last year’s budget deal as a “crap sandwich.”  

Ryan and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus must order off the same menu. Priebus blasted CNBC’s GOP presidential debate back in October as a “crap sandwich.”  


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