Every time a GOP candidate rises in the polls, the attacks begin. So now that Ohio Gov. John Kasich has climbed to the top tier in recent New Hampshire polls, will he get the same treatment - possibly starting as soon as tonight's Republican presidential debate in North Charleston, S.C.?

Every time a GOP candidate rises in the polls, the attacks begin.

So now that Ohio Gov. John Kasich has climbed to the top tier in recent New Hampshire polls, will he get the same treatment � possibly starting as soon as tonight�s Republican presidential debate in North Charleston, S.C.?

You can count on it, said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute for Applied Politics at the University of Akron.

The only question is how.

�A lot will depend on why Kasich is appealing to voters,� Green said. �If Kasich is perceived to be gaining ground among moderates, we will see one kind of criticism, but if he is perceived as drawing from conservatives, we may see another.�

>> John Kasich: Complete coverage of his presidential campaign

Surprising some political observers who had all but written him off, Kasich qualified for the final spot of the seven in the 9 p.m. portion of the debate, sponsored by Fox Business Network. Also in the prime-time slot: billionaire Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Green said he thinks Kasich �is more vulnerable from the right.�

That likely means attacks on his support for Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, the Common Core education model, and his 1994 congressional vote to ban �assault weapons.�

The super-PAC supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush already has seized on the gun vote, tweeting a copy of a thank-you letter to Kasich from President Bill Clinton that it found last year during �oppo research� in Kasich�s archives at the Westerville Public Library. Kasich has said the vote 22 years ago was a mistake, and he has returned to the good graces of the National Rifle Association.

�These are topics that potentially hurt Kasich among conservatives,� Green said.

Judging from some candidates� hard-core stance on immigration, Kasich may even be labeled as being for �amnesty for illegal aliens� because he doesn�t want to deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in America.

Many of the potential issues that can be used against Kasich may seem like old news to Ohio voters, but they won�t to a nation still unfamiliar with the second-term governor.

Even the familiar topic of Kasich�s tenure with Lehman Brothers � which went bellyup in 2008 and helped spark the Great Recession � could come up (although not by Bush, who also worked there).

Green said an entirely separate array of issues comes into play if Kasich�s opponents want to bloody him up with moderates.

These subjects include Ohio�s below-national-average job growth, the increase in child poverty and perhaps even the mess with David Hansen � husband of Kasich�s campaign manager, Beth � scrubbing charter-school data at the Ohio Department of Education.

Other potential talking points for use against Kasich include significant increases in state spending and his advocacy of increased sales and oil-and-gas severance taxes.

�These are governing issues that can hurt Kasich with either group,� Green said.

Even Kasich�s team realizes he likely will no longer have the luxury of being ignored when the brickbats are flying.

He has briefly traded fire with Trump and Cruz during earlier debates and did not emerge unscathed. But with Kasich competing with Bush, Christie and Rubio for the role of GOP establishment favorite, there could be new interplay among that quartet.

Ironically, the back-and-forth in the GOP debates is part of a process that was intended to avoid the bloodshed of numerous debates in the 2012 campaigns.

The four not-Trump/not-Cruz candidates already are trading fire in New Hampshire, site of the nation�s first primary Feb. 9.

For example, a super-PAC backing Bush has paid for $3 million in TV time for an ad featuring a whirling weather wane, bashing Rubio for �flipping� his position on amnesty.

A senior Rubio adviser tweeted in reply that Bush�s ailing campaign �exists now for (the) sole purpose of tearing down conservatives.�

A group backing Rubio has a spot hitting Christie for the Bridgegate scandal and underperforming on job growth.

Christie has knocked Rubio for missing numerous votes in the Senate, although he also said on TV this week, �We�re not going to get into this side bickering that all the other candidates are getting into.�

Kasich�s super-PAC has chewed on Christie for changing rhetoric about Planned Parenthood and guns.

Last week, a woman at a town-hall meeting in Hampton, N.H., questioned Kasich about the mailing, saying it was so negative that it appeared to have come from Democrats. Kasich said that his official campaign is legally separate from the super-PAC, but once the race is over he will have something to say to its leaders.

drowland@dispatch.com

@darreldrowland