2016 Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Governor John Kasich, who has remained a critic of the Trump administration, fielded questions from New Day co-host Alisyn Camerota about a possible 2020 Presidential run on Tuesday.
Camerota could barely contain her excitement as she pleaded with the Ohio Governor to run for President on a “split ticket” in 2020. Check out the video and transcript:
ALISYN CAMEROTA: So Governor, are you running for President in 2020?
JOHN KASICH: I have no clue what I’m doing in the next, in the next day. I know I’m going back home tonight. I don’t know, Alisyn. Look, we don’t know what’s happening in politics today. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.
CAMEROTA: I know.
KASICH: I just don’t know. I couldn’t say that.
CAMEROTA: But I mean, Governor, listen. You have long talked about bipartisanship and how important that is and just now, you’re talking about how you don’t like how hardened each side has become, how polarized. And so, is there possibly a split ticket in your future? Is there a way that, I mean, this is the message you want to get out. Why not say, yeah, I’m going to try it again and I’m going to run in that middle ground that you like to talk about?
CNN had previously run a story on the idea of Kasich running on a “split ticket” with Democratic Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper in 2020. In such a scenario, the duo would run as independents, hoping that they would have the ability to syphon off enough disaffected voters in both parties to reach the magic number of 270 electoral votes.
Kasich running against President Trump in a primary seems like a very romantic scenario for the Trump-hating mainstream media. Nearly every President since World War II who has sought a second term has won a second term. The only exceptions were Gerald Ford (1976), Jimmy Carter (1980) and George H.W. Bush (1992).
All three of those Presidents had one thing in common: the presence of strong primary challengers. In 1976, future President Ronald Reagan ran to the right of moderate Republican Gerald Ford. In 1980, liberal philanderer Ted Kennedy ran to the left of incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter at a time when the Iran hostage crisis and high inflation rates plagued the country. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush faced a primary challenge from conservative Pat Buchanan. The presence of independent candidates in the Presidential elections of 1980 and 1992 certainly did not help the incumbents.
The media would love it even more if Kasich ran a third-party candidate; thus splitting the Republican vote, allowing a Democrat to capture the Presidency, much like what happened in 1992. The mainstream media simply thrives on the idea of Republican disunity. The media cheerleaders will gladly pull out their pom-poms for the candidate that will take down President Trump, whether that candidate comes in the form of a Republican like John Kasich or a far-left Democrat.
