Brushing Off Iowa, John Kasich Is Counting on New Hampshire

John Kasich on Wednesday said he would drop his presidential bid if he doesn’t finish in the top tier in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.

Speaking in Newbury, New Hampshire Kasich is sticking to his message of bringing fiscal discipline to Washington instead of focusing on the results of Monday’s Iowa caucuses.

Kasich went on to say that he and his campaign staff were “outraged” when they heard of a Super PAC ad which was critical of Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio and forced the ad to be pulled. They aren’t like those hard-line Evangelicals and immigration hawks in Iowa; they want a candidate who is pragmatic and even-keeled and can Get Things Done™ in the White House.

“We were all outraged in the campaign and I don’t think they’ll put it up. At the end of the day we will have done everything we can possibly do”, Kasich said. Scott Brown of MA, who lost a New Hampshire Senate campaign in 2014.

Kasich says in Durham, New Hampshire, that it “an’t that great” for one person to be able to contribute $10 million to support a specific candidate.

During his conversation with voters, Kasich outlined his economic, tax and regulatory agenda and said, “I’m ready to roll”. Marco Rubio at 11% and Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 9%. It’s a strategy that has worked for some in the past and been fatal for others, such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani who placed sixth in Iowa and then came in fourth in New Hampshire after being the national front-runner.

New Hampshire’s primary process, in which voters cast ordinary ballots, offers the candidates a more straightforward sprint toward victory than Iowa. Ted Cruz in second, behind Trump, in the New Hampshire race.

Jon Parker says the former Pennsylvania senator planned lengthy tour of SC beginning this week ahead of the February 20 primary that follows New Hampshire. “He calls his own legislators “knuckleheads, ‘ ‘thugs” and ‘bullies.’ He publicly called the police officer who had given him a traffic ticket an ‘idiot, ‘” Trickey writes. Without singling out rivals for criticism, he said they have to do more than tap voter anger.

“Despite a “rush to judgment by political pundits” anointing Rubio as the pragmatic alternative to Trump and Cruz, Weaver said history doesn’t show that a third-place finish in Iowa translates into Granite State success”. Gov. Kasich’s bigger problem, as Rothenberg notes, is that “he continues to be the favorite Republican candidate of Democrats, liberals and members of the media”. There is an old joke there, ‘who are you going to vote for? Cruz and Rubio have the momentum after Iowa and that means free media and cash. Rubio’s speech from Monday night was nearly a carbon copy for the 2008 Barack Obama Iowa speech.

Rand Paul is dropping out of the 2016 race for president.