Ohio is known as the “Mother of Presidents” and Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Sherrod Brown are both considering ways to be added to that list.
Kasich, an anti-Trump Republican, is back in New Hampshire today meeting with supporters in Concord.
And Brown, who was on Hillary Clinton’s very short list for running-mate in 2016, is finally admitting he may have White House intentions after all.
“This will very much be a family decision,” said Brown. “It would affect a decade of our lives. It is a very personal, serious decision.”
Brown, who just raised more money for his reelection campaign than any other politician in Ohio’s history, said he believes the message of worker empowerment should be a blueprint for the national Democrats to win back the White House in 2020.
“My message clearly appeals to Democrats, Republicans and independents,” said Brown. “We showed you can get votes by being authentic and standing up for workers. People in Washington don’t understand the dignity of work.”
Brown had no trouble winning reelection as a liberal Democrat in a state that went overwhelmingly for Donald Trump just two years ago.
Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Sherrod Brown.
He says he’ll make a decision after the holidays, but as we have editorialized on JimHeath.TV, he may be the Democrats best shot at defeating Trump in 2020.
For Kasich, who will leave office in January, there are dreams to unravel Trump’s success by preventing him from facing a Democrat in the general election.
While he placed second behind Trump in the New Hampshire primary in 2016, there is growing hope among establishment Republicans that Trump’s appeal, especially with GOP women, may be waning.
“I don’t have a timetable. I don’t announce timetables because I don’t know,” Kasich told reporters in New Hampshire today. “I have to see what the situation is and whether I could really have an impact. I don’t want to waste anybody’s time if there’s not a clear path to having a major impact.”
Kasich said he doesn’t have a burning desire to be president but rather “I have a burning desire to make a difference for our country and for people. To get people to understand that they’re special, that they’re unique. That they have a destiny and they need to find it. That matters to me more than seeking political office. I’ve been in political office for a long time.”
The vocal Trump critic said he’s “unhappy with the fact that it seems that the Republican Party has been hijacked” by Trump.
And looking to last week’s midterm election results, where the GOP got trounced in the House, Kasich said, “my observation was that when you lose young people, minorities, women, college educated people, as a party, you’ve got a problem. It turns out that’s exactly what happened. It was driven largely the rhetoric of the president.”
And he emphasized that “what happened in this election was people rejected his behavior.”
While Kasich has called Trump the “Commander in Chaos,” Trump has repeatedly berated Kasich, calling him everything from “a complete and total dud” to a “dummy.”