Monday, March 22, 1999
Kasich tries to drum up support in New Hampshire
BY PAUL BARTON
Enquirer Washington Bureau
SUNAPEE, N.H. — Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, emerged in the lobby of the Best Western wearing a thin athletic jersey and basketball shorts.
He had just returned from a twilight run along the bottom of snow-covered Mount Sunapee, defying the still-freezing temperatures in Western New Hampshire on this first weekend of spring.
Mr. Kasich's quest for the 2000 GOP presidential nomination is also an act of defiance, this time against a prevailing political climate that has tagged him a presidential long shot at best.
The 46-year-old House Budget Committee chairman shrugs off early polling that shows him far behind Texas Gov. George W. Bush and former Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole.
The way Mr. Kasich sees it, he has a year to win over voters in informal settings in New Hampshire and Iowa, those key contests at the start of a primary season that can give life to a fledgling campaign or leave it deflated.
Known for his frenetic style in Congress, Mr. Kasich intends to pour his energy into these two small states. This weekend marked his fourth visit to New Hampshire in the past five weeks.
“You're going to get tired of seeing me because I'm going to be here quite a bit over the next year,” he says as he crisscrosses the state.
At a meeting of Sullivan County Republicans in a restored opera house in Newport on Saturday night, Mr. Kasich challenged the crowd to make it happen for him if they liked him and his ideas.
“New Hampshire is special,” he told them, adding that he is just a mailman's son but that states like New Hampshire can take such candidates and “put them in a rocket ship and launch them.”
“You do the screening for the country,” he said.
Mr. Kasich's aides acknowledge they have a steep hill to climb but remain confident of their strategy.
“We're just going to work harder and do it voter by voter,” said Kasich spokesman Todd Harris.
Money won't carry New Hampshire, because grass-roots campaigning is too critical.
“If you flop in somebody's living room, you're toast,” the Kasich aide said.
Mr. Kasich pines for all the informal settings he can get.
“I want you to help me. I really need your help,” he told the Sullivan County crowd.
“I'll be in your living rooms. I'll be in your coffee shops. I'll be wherever you want me to be.”
In a state that goes by the motto “Live Free or Die,” Mr. Kasich's message is the need for Washington to give power back to the people.
At the top of his agenda is a call for Americans to have a say over where their Social Security tax dollars are invested and to have more choice in medical coverage under Medicare.
“This country was founded on the notion that the people are supreme,” he said.
Mr. Kasich also talks about the need to get budget surpluses out of Washington and back to taxpayers before the politicians use the extra money to come up with new programs.
And he talks repeatedly about the need to “shine up” institutions of faith and family.
Do New Hampshire residents see Mr. Kasich as presidential timber? “I can,” said Rod Chandler, 61, of Sunapee. “From what I hear, he is making quite an impression.”
His concern? “I don't know if he is that well known among the general public,” he said.
Mr. Kasich knows, however, that the general public will take him seriously if he can pull off an upset here next winter.
Shed a tear for a sneezer and his beezer
Fort Washington Way to narrow
Dad gets OK to be at prison birth
Fernald finishes 'safe shutdown' phase
Fight over tobacco money begins
Cincinnati schools might ask 6-mill levy
Walnut Hills cracks down on prom wear
Cincinnati may approve charter school policy tonight
Kasich tries to drum up support in New Hampshire
Tigerlilies take long road back
Her tires are walking boots
She pieced together quilt of love
Blue note ends season for UK fans
Fort Wright might rein pets
Free parking possible for High Street
Jobless rate just 3.4% in Warren
Kenton County cities that limit pets
Lots of Oscar laughs, surprises
Man pleads guilty to manslaughter
Mason girls get warm homecoming
Silverton now shows a surplus
Students in transition get answers
TRISTATE DIGEST
