Eminentoes / The Trouble With John Kasich
Novak, Robert D.
The Trouble With John Kasich by Robert D. Novak 0 n Sunday evening, August 20, as the House of Representatives was about to pass its final version of the crime bill, Rep. John Kasich of Ohio was in...
...John Ashbrook signed a letter urging that Kasich ("a true Judas") not be permitted to attend the annual dinner honoring the conservative Ohioan who challenged Richard Nixon in 1972...
...Kasich bridles at the notion that he is an inside-the-Beltway careerist, insisting that—in contrast to many House members—his real home is back in his district...
...Chris Cox, the former Reagan staffer who represents California's conservative Orange County, isn't a member of the John Kasich Fan Club...
...All the praise suggests where the boundaries of respectable Washington conduct lie...
...John Kasich of Ohio was in a state of high excitement—perhaps comparable to the time three years earlier when he let his animal spirits get the best of him and climbed onstage at a Grateful Dead concert at Washington's RFK stadium...
...He has been in the vanguard of downsizing bloated government, having sought to eliminate the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Department of Commerce, and to privatize air traffic controllers...
...saying he had misspoken, that he had been rattled by the presiding officer behind him pounding the gavel to signify that his time had elapsed...
...This is the way we will govern this House, and govern this country, by making tough, tough decisions and coming toward the middle to serve our country...
...The 1994 edition of the authoritative Almanac of American Politics calls Kasich "a genuine leader of his party...
...Last year, at age 40, after only a dozen years in Congress, he earned his Budget Committee leadership post after a vigorous campaign contending—with no little justification—that he would be more conservative and aggressive than 60-yearold Rep...
...Kasich's conservative credentials are indeed impressive...
...He's known no other life since graduating from Ohio State University in Columbus as an out-of-state resident (growing up in a Democratic family in a blue-collar Pittsburgh neighborhood...
...Was this but 'a momentary aberration...
...At a stormy session of conservative activists, New Right trendsetter Paul Weyrich angrily urged that Kasich be ousted from his Budget Committee leadership, and replaced by Chris Cox...
...Efforts to cut the budget by 1 percent or eliminate the ICC may be viewed as misguided but safely within the realm of civil political debate...
...N either Kasich's determination to shrink the government nor his mastery over budgetary matters can be challenged...
...After one term, he ran for Congress in 1982, defeating a short-lived Democratic incumbent in a normally Republican seat from the Columbus area...
...The family of the late Rep...
...When Kasich then agreed to raise the credit to $500, two senior Republicans on the budget committee—Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Olympia Snowe of Maine—protested bitterly, saying it would not be "fair" if the tax credit extended to children of the rich...
...On September 12, he signed a letter to House colleagues titled: "Now Is Not the Time for Health Care Reform...
...Diligent, personable, and effective, he has come to view himself as mastering the intricacies of government "most people don't understand...
...Most felt the crime bill was still a sham, another case, as Republican strategist William Kristol has put it, of "some Hill Republicans working overtime to pull President Clinton's chestnuts out of the fire...
...He has received the stamp of approval from that powerful liberal arbiter of value in the capital, Wall Street Journal columnist Albert Hunt...
...Kasich later conceded to me that his position was in error, but this year he again stumbled over tax "fairness...
...About the only criticism he's received in the mainstream press came in 1991, after his comic effort to join the Grateful Dead...
...So, what happened to Kasich on the crime bill...
...He has pioneered a movement for absentee electronic voting in the House to permit members to spend more time in their districts, and talks about—someday in the not-too-distant future—getting out of public life...
...In May, over drinks in Columbus, he told me that the GOP could not afford to be responsible for the death of health care reform and that a compromise must be pursued...
...A week later, his confession of error was broader: "I made a mistake in speaking on the floor...
...He opposes congressional term limits (which makes him distinctive among House Republicans only because his opposition is overt rather than covert...
...Yet there appears to have been a significant gap between what Gingrich and his protégé were seeking...
...Variously described as an Eagle Scout or the "fifth Beatle," the youthful politician is hard to dislike...
...On that Sunday night, he took a seat in the House directly in front of the speaking stand, positioned perfectly to glare at Kasich when he spoke and, perhaps, to intimidate him...
...His diligence in proposing alternative budgets has been commended editorially by the New York Times and the Washington Post...
...Kasich responded by putting a $40,000 cap on who could take the credit...
...Rather, Kasich's performance mirrors the state of congressional Republicans generally...
...After a stint as a state legislative staffer, he was elected to the Ohio senate at age 26...
...Six years before the Penny-Kasich bill, Kasich entered into a partnership with left-wing California Democrat Rep...
...Gingrich voted against the final bill...
...Gingrich wanted Republican demands to be so harsh that they would be rejected...
...That's where he went wrong the evening of August 20...
...He split from the Republican majority in backing the ban on assault weapons in the crime bill...
...Or did it connote a basic transformation...
...One of the few votes that hurt his ACU rating was his support of National Endowment for the Arts funding...
...A poll of 6,000 "movers and shakers" rated him the "best" Republican congressman...
...It sheds some light on the Republican failure to capitalize fully on populist currents that it could ride to a dominant political position...
...It didn't work...
...Tim Penny, to cut spending by $90 billion...
...But on the merits, Kasich dismissed as "ridiculous" William Kristol's arguments that the bill runs counter to Republican principles by federalizing the crime problem...
...A week after his floor speech on the crime bill, Kasich told me he did not intend to point his party toward the middle: "I was rushed, and what I meant to say was how people who agree have to work together...
...As the newly anointed Republican spokesman on budgetary affairs, Kasich last year personified his party's failure to confront President's Clinton's plan to redistribute income through the tax system...
...The American Spectator November 1994 49...
...His latest ratings show 92 percent conservative (American Conservative Union) and 0 percent liberal (Americans for Democratic Action...
...Kasich pleaded for Republicans to pass the bill and, as his allotted time was running out, delivered a peroration that has already caused him no shortage of grief: "What we are viewing is a tough negotiating process that is the future in this House...
...Kasich firmly believes that "I can actually pass a conservative agenda through the House next year...
...He doesn't share the conservative disdain for the bill, echoing the Democratic view that the uproar was stirred up by the NRA...
...It's no secret that Kasich had planned to vote for the unamended crime bill, warts and all, had it not been kept off the floor by a procedural vote, in which Kasich joined...
...He flies to Columbus at every opportunity to see both constituents and his girlfriend(he is unmarried...
...Not so opposition to gun control or NEA funding, or support for term limits and radical tax cuts...
...It's not only on taxes that Kasich deviates from populist Republicanism...
...His budget-cutting efforts have been both micro (trying to kill a $500,000 grant to restore bandleader Lawrence Welk's North Dakota home) and macro (attempting, in collaboration with Demo-cratic Rep...
...I wish I had never spoken...
...But Kasich had just received the 1994 "Sound Dollar Award" of the Free Congress Foundation—whose president is Paul Weyrich...
...T he damage had been done, howev- er...
...Chamber of Commerce for a perfect voting record...
...Ron Dellums to de-fund the B-2 "Stealth" bomber...
...Alex McMillan, the North Carolina congressman who was in line for the post by virtue of seniority...
...As ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, he had been assigned by minority leader Newt Gingrich to represent the party in round-the-clock negotiations with Democratic leaders and the White House...
...The pro-family lobby, headed by Gary Bauer's Family Research Council, complained that so trifling a proposal was not worth fighting for...
...But there is no question that Kasich cherishes his Washington position...
...Kasich was "to be commended for efforts aimed at restoring fiscal responsibility to our nation," Weyrich had said in announcing the award...
...But if he gets insufficient support from his colleagues, he told me, he will reconsider his opposition to term limits...
...Kasich voted for it...
...Otherwise, he said, "I would have no credibility...
...Within twenty-four hours, Kasich was Robert D. Novak is a nationally syndicated columnist, television commentator, and editor of the Evans & Novak Political Report...
...As he took the House floor, Kasich was ecstatic that he had wrung out so many concessions...
...He has a lifetime 100 percent Christian Coalition rating, and was given the 1993 "Spirit of Enterprise Award" by the U.S...
...Kasich has been well behind the curve on health care...
...With some pride, Kasich hosted a dinner at his home last year with Hillary Rodham Clinton, in which the first lady (whom he now addresses as "Hillary") discussed health care with him and other Republican House members...
...The trouble with John Kasich is the trouble with the Grand Old Party...
...This has nothing to do with health care," Kasich assured me, seeking to allay fears that he would lead the GOP "toward the middle" on that issue as well...
...Kasich's deviations from the conservative agenda are those that keep him in the good graces of the Washington establishment...
...In fact, John Kasich, in his twelfth year in Congress at age 42, is a walking argument for term limits himself...
...A month later, shocked by the determination of House Democratic leaders to pass a health bill with Democratic votes only, Kasich was not so sure...
...I would have no objection to a tax on rich people," Kasich said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in May 1993, "but I want to make [spending] cuts for the first couple of years...
...When pro-family activists protested, Kasich raised the cap to $200,000—limiting its reach, but retaining the "fairness doctrine" nonetheless...
...But they also ignore the role that the term limits movement, the NRA, and (considering his position on the NEA) the Christian Coalition have played in winning special House elections this year and must continue to play if Republicans are to make significant gains in November...
...It was Kasich's budgetary expertise and ability to deal with Democrats that led Newt Gingrich to assign him to negotiate on behalf of thirty moderate Republicans who insisted on passing a crime bill...
...Kasich wanted—and got—agreement...
...Two weeks later, he was saying that he should not have spoken at all...
...Neither, really...
...4G f / somebody wants to accuse me of not being an ideologue, I suppose that's correct," a peeved Kasich told me after he came under fire for his role in passing the crime bill...
...Therein lies the danger of elevating the art of the deal over adherence to principle...
...Trying 48 The American Spectator November 1994 to draft a deficit-shrinking budget with the lowest bottom line, Kasich put on his green eyeshade and came out with a $100per-child tax credit...
...Many of his GOP colleagues did not share Kasich's joy...
...But on matters of pressing concern to the GOP rank and file, Kasich is given to the softness that has long characterized the party's congressional wing...
...The professional politician in him abhors the ideologue and venerates the negotiator...
...I don't have any hang-up about saying, you know, you put some surtax or surcharge on people who make a lot of money...
...I thought this was a reasonable measure, to say we're not going to make any AK-47s," he told me...
...Rather, it's that—like most members of Congress—he's a professional politician first...
...t isn't that Kasich is an apostate...
...He has won high praise from the capital's establishment—particularly for his work ethic—that would be unthinkable for such bogeymen as Jesse Helms, Robert Doman, or even Newt Gingrich...
...While building his impressive conservative voting record, Kasich has also built bridges to Democrats...
Vol. 27 • November 1994 • No. 11
