John Kasich has a résumé seemingly tailor-made for a serious run for the Republican nomination: blue-collar upbringing, congressional budget hawk, Fox News commentator, investment banker, successful two-term governor of Ohio.

But there’s just one problem, according to interviews with dozens of those who’ve worked in politics alongside him at various points over the past several decades: his short fuse.


There was the friend who excitedly called Kasich to tell him he was about to announce a campaign for statewide office, only to get a letdown of a reply: “How stupid are you?”

There was the wealthy conservative donor he raised his voice to during a Koch brothers-sponsored conference, prompting a walkout.

There was the BP employee who, in the middle of a meeting, found himself the target of Kasich’s derision. “You know why oil and gas companies have a bad reputation?” the governor barked at him. “Because they deserve it.”

There was the professor who wrote Kasich, then a young state senator, a letter of complaint about his education policies. “When you learn to write a civil letter,” the brash lawmaker fired back, “I will respond accordingly.”

Kasich, 63, is far from the only politician to face questions about his temperament. During his presidency, Bill Clinton was known to have lashed out at those who worked in the White House. Chris Christie’s outbursts have become a trademark of sorts, proudly displayed in clips on the New Jersey governor’s YouTube channel.

But the tales of angry tantrums have dogged Kasich throughout his long career, from the state Legislature, to the halls of Congress, to the governorship. So much so that even the famously volatile Sen. John McCain once said of Kasich: “He has a hair-trigger temper.”

And as the governor — who will formally declare his presidential bid during a Tuesday appearance at The Ohio State University — steps into the glare of the national spotlight, it seems certain that the questions about his bedside manner will only intensify.

Kasich’s advisers say his bluntness will appeal to frustrated voters looking for a tell-it-like-it-is candidate who has sharp elbows and authenticity.

“Even when voters disagree with him, they respect his willingness to speak truthfully about his views,” said Chris Schrimpf, a Kasich spokesman. “Many wind up thanking him for being so refreshing.”

Those who know Kasich insist that he doesn’t really have anger problems but is, rather, deeply intense — a pol who spurns the polished style that most of his colleagues embrace. He’s an acquired taste, they contend — the kind of person who gives a better second impression than a first. Yet as the primary season takes on a greater intensity, and as every word a candidate utters is put under a microscope, his temperament also presents a danger.

“There’s no question that John is very direct. He doesn’t waste anyone’s time. I find it refreshing. For other people, they can’t deal with that kind of directness,” said former Rep. Doug Ose, a California Republican who served with Kasich. “It depends on what your cup of tea is.”

Kasich’s “directness” dates back to the earliest days of his political career, when he demonstrated a willingness to confront constituents who criticized him.

“I received your curt, one-sentence letter,” Kasich wrote in an August 1981 missive to Larry Reutzel, a Boardman, Ohio, resident who’d promised to oppose the state senator’s reelection if he voted for a piece of legislation dealing with the state’s medical board. “I suggest you learn a little diplomacy before writing any more letters to members of the Legislature.”

“Letters like yours,” Kasich added, “will do nothing to promote your cause.”

The stories have kept coming since Kasich was first elected governor in 2010.

Matt Mayer, a conservative activist in Ohio, can recall an incident from 2011. He was walking down the street with a friend when they ran into Kasich and his entourage. Only months earlier, Mayer, who was working at a think tank called The Buckeye Institute, had released a report calling the state’s government bloated and inefficient.

Spotting the two, the governor ignored Mayer but pulled aside his friend, telling him something out of earshot. The friend walked back over. “I’m supposed to tell you the report’s wrong,” the friend said.

To the governor’s detractors, run-ins like those underscore his inability to accommodate the views of others. “When you criticize Kasich, you’re sort of dead to him,” said Mayer. “That’s the way it works.”

His defenders, though, highlight his direct style and willingness to engage with those who disagree. “If you’re not prepared to go head to head with him, it can be tough,” said former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican who served alongside Kasich.

Powerful interests aren’t immune to the fire. In May 2013, the governor found himself clashing with the petroleum industry, which was battling his proposal for a tax hike on oil and gas. At a gathering of business professionals near Youngstown, his anger boiled over.

“Oil companies are liars and they are going to be screwed,” he told a BP public relations staffer named Curtis Thomas, according to one person who’d obtained a transcript of the meeting. Kasich warned that an even higher tax than the one he proposed could go before voters. “Then you’ll be crying to me.”

“You said you wanted to be a good partner, but what do you do?” the governor asked. “You fight me. Do you think I want to work with people like that?”

Even Republican Party donors, a class that is accustomed to being courted and stroked by presidential hopefuls, have felt the venom. Last year, while appearing at a conference sponsored by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, Kasich collided with Randy Kendrick, the wife of Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, who questioned him about why he’d said that his push for Medicaid expansion was what God wanted. “I don’t know about you, lady,” Kasich said as he pointed at Kendrick, his voice rising. “But when I get to the pearly gates, I’m going to have an answer for what I’ve done for the poor.”

The exchange took many in the audience aback; about 20 people sitting in the crowd walked out. Two governors also on stage with Kasich, Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, told him they disagreed with his remarks.

Earlier this year, he clashed with another powerful donor, who during a private meeting pressed Kasich on whether he was entering the race too late. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kasich snapped at the donor, who wished to remain anonymous.

His blowups have not simply been behind the scenes. In January 2011, while speaking at at the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Kasich told a story about a police officer pulling him over on a highway for driving too close to an emergency vehicle. The police officer, the governor said several times, was an “idiot.” Kasich would later meet with the officer to apologize.

Kasich’s style, his friends say, is the product of his blue-collar upbringing in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, a hard-luck industrial town just outside of Pittsburgh where Kasich’s father worked as a mailman.

“I never knew Kasich to have anger issues,” said former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who spent more than a decade with Kasich in the House. “He has intensity, urgency and passion issues.”

The Ohio Republican is particularly driven, the former speaker said, by a desire to correct the government’s failures. “He doesn’t see public policy as some abstract intellectual thing, but rather as an emotional, right and wrong process that can help or hurt people.”

During a news conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, Kasich brushed aside a question about whether his temperament would hamper his presidential bid by pointing to his record of electoral success. Last year, he won a second term as governor by a landslide.

“I think people want someone is who direct,” he said. “That’s where I think they are on this.”

While Kasich can be combative and prone to challenging the views of those around him, he can be equally reflective. Dave Hobson, a former Ohio congressman, recalled one flare-up at the Monocle, a popular Capitol Hill bar, during the 1990s. Kasich was in a heated argument with a fellow lawmaker about a policy issue. “He’d really gone at it. It was loud,” Hobson said. “I moved away from the table.”

A short while later, Kasich approached Hobson. It had occurred to him that he’d been on the wrong side of the argument.

“He got me, didn’t he?” the congressman asked.

Others talk about a caring side. A few years ago, Hoekstra called his former colleague to tell him that he was about leave the private sector to embark on a 2012 Senate bid.

“Hoekstra, how stupid are you?” Kasich snapped. “Why would you want to do that?” It was the kind of conversation, Hoekstra recalled, “that made you want to hold the phone 3 or 4 inches away from your head.” The governor spent “3 or 4 minutes” telling the former congressman why he was making a mistake.

The next time they spoke, though, Kasich was of a very different mindset. What, he wanted to know, could he do to help?

“He can be intimidating, but he’s always there to support the people that he’s dealing with,” said Hoekstra. “I have never seen an ounce of meanness.”

At times of great stress, and when political stakes are particularly high, Kasich can exhibit a surprising coolness. At one point during his tenure on the House Committee, Kasich found himself in an office with Floyd Spence, the longtime South Carolina congressman. Kasich was leading the charge to terminate funding for the B-2 bomber, an expensive aircraft that had been found to have design flaws. Spence, a member of the Armed Services Committee, was none too happy about it.

At one point in the meeting, according to one staffer present, Spence called Kasich a traitor.

Rather than lash out — as many were expecting him to do — the Ohio congressman was placid.

“Floyd,” he said calmly. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

For all his fire, Kasich’s friends say, he doesn’t lack self-awareness.

Hobson said he recently ran into his former colleague, who made him a promise about his temper.

“I’m working on it,” he said.