Kasich has no path to the White House.

No Kasich campaign.

I saw him in at a public event in New Hampshire. He was flirting with us. He tangled his candidacy in front of people and then said "no."

He sounds like a reasonable, soft-spoken, moderate guy who knows how to govern and wants to heal America's divisions. 

That is his problem. GOP voters are drawn to anger and outrage instead.

John Kasich was a serious candidate for president four years ago. He was a successful congressman who led the House Budget Committee and was then serving a second term as governor of Ohio. I saw multiple events in his early campaign in November, 2015. He had the usual suite of GOP positions: cut costs, end abortion, strong military. He was an outlier in having led Ohio to use the ACA to expand Medicaid, which he said was working and saving lives. He had survived the Trump winnowing and was still in the race in May of 2016 when Oregon voted. It was down to Trump, Cruz, and Kasich.

Kasich was wiped out. Trump got 70% of the vote in Oregon. Voters chose Trump populism, and still want it. 

Kasich finished his term, wrote a book, and is on TV doing commentary. He says Trump is a dangerously unstable president and should be impeached.

Last week at a gathering of about a hundred in New Hampshire I asked Kasich the question: why not file, get the visibility given to a candidate, likely lose, sure, but set the standard that you represent a better kind of Republican, a common sense Republican who wants to govern and unite, not pick political fights. Surely there is--or will be--a political market for that. Plant a seed for a future Kasich presidency.

Click: Quick video sample

"I don't see a path to winning," he said. 

He said that he and his wife were achievement-oriented hikers. We want to get to the top of things, or to the very best viewpoints on a trail. He said he always looks ahead to make sure there isn't some impassable barrier. "I have to see a path to where I want to go. There isn't one for me in 2020."

Kasich is theoretically exactly what the GOP wanted in the pre-Trump era. He is conservative. Religious. Scandal free. His message has the kinder, gentler conservatism that had worked for the two Bush presidents, spoken in tones of earnest moderation. Not anymore.

Voters want something else. They want a fighter. They want the talk radio tone of anger and outrage.

Click: Another video sample

Kasich does not fit the current GOP media environment. We are seeing more and more Trump-like spokespeople, indignant, angry, adamant, strong, divisive on purpose. 

Rush Limbaugh has had the tone and message for two decades. Sean Hannity does it on radio and TV both. The popular prime time opinion shows on Fox all do it. Lindsay Graham has picked it up. Brett Kavanaugh did it and it worked for him. 

We are seeing it again right now in the impeachment hearings. The House GOP arranged its committee membership to put Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes front and center. They are angry firebrands. Nunes uses words like "ludicrous," "impeachment charade," "damage inflicted," "smear," "stroked the frenzy," "cooked up," "lied," "lashed out," "spectacle," "fake outrage": words used in a three minute period in Nunes's comment on Wednesday morning's hearing prior to hearing from Gordon Sondland.

Nunes finished his opening statement this way, but to get a better feel for the emotional tone, click on the video better to observe the tone.

Click. Hear the tone.

     "The media, of course, are free to act as Democrat puppets, and they're free to lurch from the Russia hoax to the Ukraine hoax at the direction of their puppet masters. But they cannot reasonably expect to do so without alienating half the country who voted for the President they're trying to expel. Americans have learned to recognize fake news when they see it, and if the mainstream press won't give it to them straight, they'll go elsewhere to find it--which is exactly what the American people are doing."

It isn't kinder, gentler, and it doesn't back away from Trump. They are fighting words spoken with intensity. They intend to humiliate and defeat the opposition: Democrats, Trump's opponents, the mainstream media. The audience has a narrow but crucial focus: Trump personally and the consumers of conservative outrage media on Fox and talk radio. That is the new normal.

John Kasich is out of step. He is offended by Trump and he doesn't come across as angry and outraged. A person like him doesn't have a path.