Kasich comes to Medford, Oregon

Kasich is the Alternative to Trump and Cruz

Low platform, wooden stool, one water bottle

John Kasich came to Medford and gave a talk that is entirely different from one that would be given by Trump or Cruz.    It is either a "Hail Mary" attempt to win with an entirely different approach or he has moved into the Acceptance phase of a candidacy in hospice and he decided it is time simply to teach Americans, not persuade them.

It was low drama.

There were seats for about 250 people and another 150 or so stood.   The event lasted about 80 minutes.

He spoke at my old high school.   He questioned whether this was the home of the "Black Tornado".   Thanks to seats reserved for Bill Thorndike, a prominent Medford businessman, I sat up front.  As the crowd shouted out confusing answers about whether it was the Panthers or Black Tornado he handed me his microphone.  I said it was the original home of the Black Tornado, then the District built new schools.   That settled that.   

Donald Trump would never have relinquished the microphone.

Relaxed.  Comfortable Shoes

John Kasich was warm, self-effacing, conversational.  He spoke from a 8 inch platform in the middle of the room, surrounded by an audience.   The school has an auditorium with a raised stage and lecterns, which had theater seating in place--the Commander in Chief arrangement.   He chose this setup instead.

He made constant reference to his role as a governor who solves practical problems in a large and diverse state.  He was re-affirming the GOP as a party of governance rather than protest and ideology.    From time to time he referenced Congress and his role as head of the House Budget Committee in the mid-1990s, saying it showed he could balance budgets, but most of the time he spoke as Ohio Governor.

He said governing is hard and it requires acknowledging messy truths (like that safety net programs are necessary even though there will be cheaters, and that taxes need to be paid if we are to have things we want, and that some programs--farm subsidies -exist because some people want them and will throw out politicians who oppose them).  Several times he prefaced his comment by warning that we were not going to particularly like what he had to say but it was important we understand something.

This speech was an appealing civic conversation.  There were campaign signs on the wall, but it wasn't a campaign rally.   It was an exhortation to be good citizens, making me think either he has given up the expectation to be elected president or he has calculated that his only real chance of election is to be utterly different from Trump and Cruz, which would make him the clear alternative if Trump and Cruz were to deadlock.

Explaining, not exhorting

Trump and Cruz are giving entirely different presentations.   They focus on ideology and they rally crowds to clear, simple, popular ideas.  They start with a premise that Kasich did not present: that the country has been in a death spiral these past 7 years, that Obama and Hillary Clinton have been a disaster in office, that the economy is much worse now than it was when Obama was elected, that unemployment and economic distress are at Great Depression levels, that the citizens of this country are frustrated and angry and that they share that anger.

They see problems and they have solutions:

***We can build a wall and solve an immigration problem.

***We can have security in the Middle East by deciding to bomb more and realizing that we are at war with Islamic terror.

***That we can solve the budget problem by eliminating the emergency phone program--Obamaphones--a useless and expensive program.

***That we can increase the military significantly and cut taxes sharply and balance the budget, simultaneously.   It would be easy.   

***You keep your Social Security and Medicare, no problem.

***That Obama and Hillary Clinton have ruined America through a combination of weakness and tyranny, but that the course of America's future will be reversed if we simply elect them.

These speeches bring audiences to their feet with frequent, sustained applause.

Conversational

In addition, there is a vast difference in tone between a Cruz/Trump presentation and the one Kasich delivered in Medford last night.   Trump is triumphant.  He commands the stage and the event.   He entered the Boca Raton arena with a helicopter overflight amid thundering triumphant music (theme from the movie "Air Force One") while Kasich's  just quietly walked into the arena.   

Cruz enters his venues with less fanfare than Trump, but his speeches put him in a commanding position.  He is firm, indeed angry, because the stakes are so high, good vs. evil.  He is decisive.  Cruz's speeches hammer out well prepared ideological zingers ("My opponent is either a cranky radical socialist communist who is out to destroy capitalism--or Bernie Sanders.") while Kasich took random questions he then actually addressed.

Kasich never raised his voice, never adopted an adamant shouting tone common in political speech, not even at the end when he asked for our vote.

John Kasich's approach to questions and answers was radically different from the norm in presidential campaigns.  Candidates in Town Halls can easily take questions from the audience to prove how knowledgeable and flexible they are because there are only a limited number of subjects questioners raise, and in fact the candidate only pretends to answer the question.   Questions are simply an excuse to bring up a subject from the "issue bank."   A question by a college student gets interpreted to be an invitation to give the 90-second stump speech section on college.  A question by an elderly person triggers a brief nod regarding the specifics of the questioner and then a 90-second stump speech on Social Security.   A nurse question triggers the End-Obamacare blast.  Everyone does it.  But not Kasich last night.

Up close at the old gymnasium, place for "sock hops"

Kasich approached Q & A as if from a party of governance, not ideology and protest, and as if the Medford audience were people he represented at our state capitol and who expected direct answers      Kasich actually addressed the questioner and stayed with the specifics of the concern, even when it created a complicated politically unsatisfactory answer rather than a well-practiced speech.   

A high school junior said college would be really expensive.  For five minutes Kasich spoke about high school advanced placement options, the need to do well enough in high school not to have to waste time in college in remedial classes, then the cost of community college, then the transferability of those credits, then the cost of the U of Oregon, and how it would mean college would cost maybe $50,000 not $150,000, and that he would earn enough as a college grad to pay that back.    Politically this is much less appealing than saying that "Public colleges should be free!" (Sanders), or "Obama has presided over runaway college inflation destroying the hopes and dreams of America's youth", which would be a satisfactory answer to a Republican audience there for a political rally.   I have seen it done dozens of times.   But not last night. 

Bill Thorndike greets Kasich

Was this good politics?  Was it effective political communication?  My sense is that the crowd left the auditorium with the lowest amount of pumped-up enthusiasm of any talk I have heard by any of over 40 campaign events over a 6 month period and this includes Town Meetings given by Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham in New Hampshire.   The crowd was informed but not inspired.  There was no sustained standing ovation; people smiled, clapped, and filed out.

The crowd may well have been quietly impressed and he may well have won votes.  But there were no cheers.

Kasich presented a candidate who represented competent, compassionate governance with practical and unexceptional attempts at solutions to problems.    Changes would come incrementally--just the way Hillary says they would come--only pushing in the opposite direction from Hillary.    The final photograph shows the audience late in the event, and I have enlarged it so readers can better read the faces of the crowd.   Kasich was appealing and interesting to them.  But their hands were folded in quiet contemplation not enthusiastic support.

The most interesting thing in this photo is the audience.  Note their affect.