Friday, June 25, 1999
Kasich here to court young GOP crowd
Campaign for White House needs a boost
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A plain cardboard box on a folding table in the second-floor lounge of Cincinnati's Regal Hotel has one Republican presidential contender, Ohio's John Kasich, working overtime here this week.
About 700 delegates to the Young Republican National Federation annual convention are dropping their presidential “straw poll” ballots into the box during the three-day event at the Regal.
Mr. Kasich, a Columbus-area congressman, is considered a long shot for the GOP presidential nomination. He's hoping that when the results of the straw poll of young Republican activists from around the country are announced Saturday, he will come out ahead of front-runner George W. Bush and the rest of the 10-candidate GOP field.
“You know, we haven't had a real good convention in this party since 1912,” Mr. Kasich said, referring to the GOP convention where former President Theodore Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to deny President William Howard Taft the nomination for a second term.
“We ought to be more like the Democrats in that way,” Mr. Kasich said. “We need to have some good, knock-down, drag-out fights.”
The Kasich campaign obviously sees a possible vote of confidence from a national GOP organization made up of 18- to 40-year-olds as giving the House budget chairman's campaign a boost — particularly since its candidate spends so much time courting young voters.
The Kasich campaign is the only presidential campaign to have a significant presence at the convention in Cincinnati.
Thursday, on the convention's first day, Mr. Kasich was seemingly everywhere — showing up for a reception for convention delegates, holding a press conference with Young Republican supporters at the hotel, and attending a Kasich 2000 fund-raiser at Cincinnati's Jefferson Hall.
And he will be back Saturday nightto deliver a “keynote speech” at the convention's awards banquet.
The only other GOP contender scheduled to speak is Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, today's luncheon speaker, while the Bush campaign is sending U.S. Rep. Anne Northup, R-Ky., on Saturday as a surrogate.
Mr. Kasich, 46 — who is as likely to quote the Rolling Stones as Ronald Reagan when talking to young voters — told the Young Republicans on Thursday that his nomination would create “excitement.”
“If I were to become the nominee,” Mr. Kasich said, “the whole country would flip upside down.”
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