John Kasich Says He’ll Never Run For Office Again (Promise?)

Asked by CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” if was going to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020,

Kasich responded:

Dana look I went to Munich to talk about the importance of NATO at the invitation of John McCain right I waded into the health care debate because I didn’t want to see coverage ripped out of all these people’s hands okay my job, believe me my job is to be a voice that’s constructive I’m not really interested in running for political office again I’m interested in being a voice that can help bring the country together again and I don’t be self-righteous or any of this stuff oh you’re not here to go up again you’re not going to run for president I don’t,  I don’t,  I don’t   I don’t see it, I just don’t see it ever I don’t see it Dan I mean what look I got other things I have to do I don’t see it you know you don’t close the door on anything but I am I don’t have my eyes on that and the reason i have an organization there is so that I can maintain a voice not just as governor but when I’m not governor I don’t intend to go away I hate to tell you for those that want me to go away I’m not going away.

Apparently the two-term Republican governor has continued to do national interviews, has maintained a political organization and has been working on a book — all moves suggesting interest in a future run. Kasich, however, emphatically denied this was the case.

Part of the reason he couldn’t attract voters was his clumsiness on the campaign trail. For example, John Kasich’s first venture into pizza politics was a failure. Partaking a slice of the sumptuous delicacy at Gino’s Pizzeria in Queens, the governor of Ohio committed pizza blasphemy. He used a fork to eat his first bite of pizza. The governor tried to spin his way out of it by eating the rest of his pizza the way God intended, folding it in half and eating with his hands. Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America the next day the candidate whined, “Look, Robin, look, look, the pizza came scalding hot, OK?”  Well I am sorry Governor Kasich but that is no excuse, as hot as it might have been you still put it in your mouth after butchering it with a fork.  Voters realized that if he can’t tame a hot slice of pizza, he wont be able to tame ISIS.

Of course there was his lie about balancing the federal budget. John Kasich keeps talking about how when he was the Chairman of the House Budget Committee during the Clinton Administration the federal budget was balanced. That’s just not true. The last time the federal budget was balanced was during the Eisenhower administration. The federal budget was not balanced in any of Bill Clinton’s eight years as President. Not once!

Kasich (and Gingrich and Clinton) say the balanced the budget because they including  the public debt but not the intra-governmental debt.    Its like paying off your American Express card while ignoring the fact that your MasterCard over the limit and months past due. Your Amex looks great but your budget is not balanced.

When the Treasury department reports the National Debt it counts both public and intra-governmental debt. Clinton’s first full budget proposal in 1993 took effect in October 1993 and concluded September 1994 (FY1994) and his last started in October 2000 and ended in September 2001. Using those bookends and subtracting each year’s national debt from prior years,  here’s the national debt at the end of each year of Clinton Budgets.