Chrissie Thompson

cthompson@usatoday.com

GREENLAND, N.H. – A year ago, John Kasich wasn’t running for president.

He was enjoying the whispers about his moderate appeal in the quintessential purple state where he is governor. He was relishing the chance to tout his congressional bona fides and to watch the grins and head-shaking as the Kasich urban legends of old crept to the edges of public consciousness. My life has been like a movie, he told people.

Something else he told people: If I run for president, and I look in the mirror at the end and can’t recognize myself, I’ve failed.

Give Kasich credit. In an election season shaped by anti-establishment sentiment and conservative extremism, the Ohio governor mostly stuck by his message of experience and bipartisanship.

Detractors said it would never work. They said he had to emphasize only issues on which he’s conservative, emphasize his fights against the established leaders of his own party, stop telling people about the 18 years he spent in Congress, stop name-dropping the Cold War.

Kasich tried that from time to time. But then he’d brag about working with Ted Kennedy or kick off a campaign appearance by lauding the virtues of expanding Medicaid under Obamacare.

Or he’d remember a congressional briefing from the 1980s, and out would come his history – again.

OK, the message hasn’t changed. But Kasich has.

This Kasich will contend in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday. In a blink, he could catapult to the front of the GOP field. Or he could be home in Westerville by Thursday.

Either way, the Ohio governor has emerged from the presidential primary more relatable and inspirational and more driven to push the agenda he believes in.

From rambling to inspirational

Kasich wasn’t supposed to make it this far.

When he finally entered the presidential race in July, he joined a 16-person field. He was polling at 1 to 2 percent nationally. He had two weeks to improve his national standing from 12th to 10th so he could qualify for the first debate and get the home-field advantage from the Cleveland crowd.

We now know he made it, boosted by the national attention generated by his campaign launch. We know he shined, with Ohioans’ applause accompanying his answers on reaching out to the poor and on accepting people who are gay, despite his opposition to same-sex marriage. That performance, combined with sunny TV commercials in New Hampshire, shot him into “contender” status.

But do you remember the speech that launched his campaign? Forty-three minutes of rambling, disjointed, vintage Kasich. He told kids not to do drugs. He cited the support of two African-Americans he’d met at Wendy’s. He reminisced about the delivery of his twin daughters.

We Ohioans are used to Kasich’s unscripted style, even during official speeches. But outside observers were stunned. One national reporter openly gaped.

At his early town hall meetings, it wasn’t much different. He’d spend 30 minutes talking about his background – growing up with a mailman father, talking his way into a meeting with then-President Richard Nixon when he was a college freshman, working on Pentagon procurement in Congress, balancing the budget and, yes, governing Ohio as it recovered from the recession. He’d then give winding answers to questions. At his first town hall, it took him about 30 minutes to field six questions.

Kasich’s appeal has always been his plainspoken style, especially contrasted with candidates such as Marco Rubio, who deal more in stump speeches. But some attendees at those early town hall meetings would grimace a bit when asked to assess the governor’s performance. They liked him. They were rooting for him. But did he have what it takes to become president?

He needs to give his answers more “punch,” one man said. Another woman implied his answers should be more direct.

Then there was his problem with the “retail politicking” – interacting casually with voters on a walk through town, after a town hall meeting or at a party. Kasich doesn’t enjoy it that much. For much of his campaign, it showed.

At a house party last fall, he walked around awkwardly, monotoning “How are you?” to people he met. And who can forget his infamously stilted conversation with a handful of factory workers last summer? Kasich cajoled, pleaded with workers to interact with him, in part because a camera crew was shooting footage for advertisements. But they couldn’t relate to him and didn’t care that, as he kept reminding them, he might be the next president. Finally, one man told him he dreamed of owning a home someday, and Kasich was incredulous that this seemed out of reach.

At some point, the magic from Kasich’s first debate stopped working. He started to slide in the polls. He found himself largely left out of debates. Other candidates were interrupting to inject themselves into the conversation, so Kasich tried it, kicking it off by lashing out about where less-qualified candidates were taking the party.

For Kasich, butting in was anathema – not because it’s unnatural for him to interrupt. He’s spent his tenure as governor interrupting administration officials and often interrupts questioners at town hall meetings before they’ve gotten their queries out. But the approach acknowledged that he lacked the clout and momentum in the GOP race to attract enough questions, and it reduced him to squabbling openly with other candidates.

In any case, it didn’t work. During an interruptions-heavy debate in November, the Milwaukee crowd booed Kasich. This, by any measure, was the low point of Kasich’s campaign. His debate performance was excoriated, his candidacy largely written off.

But something changed. His town hall meetings became more focused: a 10- to 15-minute introduction, about a dozen questions. Now, the openings skip boilerplate bio and focus on the things that make Kasich “Kasich.” They’re even inspirational at times.

“When we rise, we have an obligation to not leave anybody in the shadows,” Kasich told Dartmouth College students last month when he spoke about tax cuts and economic growth. “We’re Americans before we’re anything else. … What is our purpose? How do we fit into the mosaic of the world?”

“One person can change the world, but you do a lot more effective in life if you work as a team," he told senior citizens in Concord later that week.

"It’s a strong country," he said this month at a country club in Greenland. "It takes a lot to beat down America.”

Kasich’s debate performances improved. He managed an artful interruption last month in South Carolina, leading to a wide discussion about free trade. He made clear, inoffensive points about his appeal in swing-state Ohio and the way his faith helped motivate him to expand Medicaid in Ohio under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Part practice, part instinct, part coaching, Kasich became a better candidate. And about a month ago, he was suddenly in second place in New Hampshire polls.

“As he got more comfortable with being himself, he began to win,” said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire politico who is advising Kasich.

In poured the attention he needed. He went from frustration to euphoria overnight.

'Like, the greatest ever'

To be clear, he still has rough moments.

Last month, when Kasich’s teenage daughters and wife, Karen, traveled with him to New Hampshire, he went too far in engaging them during his town hall meetings.

“OK, my wife’s getting bored. We’ve only got time for one or two more questions,” he said at the Dartmouth town hall meeting. She, of course, demurred. “OK, I thought you were – you were kind of looking to the side,” he continued. “OK, I’m sorry!”

Later in the day, in Lebanon, Kasich teased his daughter Reese for wanting to attend an art college in London. It didn't go well.

Then there was this: A Dartmouth doctor asked him what President Kasich would do to educate and empower women. He answered her only by talking about money for women’s health and preventing infant mortality.

Still, some voters appear to be rewarding Kasich’s brand of pragmatism and his folksy style.

In New Hampshire alone, Kasich has held 100 town halls – more than anyone else in the field. His affinity for them marks a departure from the John Kasich that Ohio has seen for the last few years. When he ran for re-election in 2014, he held hardly any public events. He certainly didn’t take public questions from random voters.

Now, “this town hall format is, like, the greatest ever. If I go forward (after New Hampshire), we’re going to do town halls,” he gushed last month at an American Legion outpost in Contoocook.

Kasich rarely speaks in sound bites and can't muster a speechy voice. Take a typical Kasich answer on Obamacare: He’ll ask people if they ski and suggest they might break their hip, and that’s why we need to be able to compare how much hospitals are charging for the same procedure. And we need you to have insurance. But we don’t need Obamacare.

Several national reporters have called Kasich “optimistic,” but that’s not quite right. Sure, Kasich refrains from criticizing Obama or other candidates as often as his rivals do, but his presentations have a weight to them.

Digital numbers tracking the national debt tick upward on a green sign that graces every town hall meeting, as Kasich warns about mounting deficits shouldered by the country’s children.

And more often than not, if a voter asks about college debt or local educational problems, Kasich launches into an exhortation about solving one’s own problems. Go to community college. Don’t spend more than you can afford. And don’t wait for Washington politicians to solve your schools’ problems. Solve them yourselves.

Voters say his down-to-earth discussions tell them he can solve problems.

This week, New Hampshire voters must decide if they prefer plainspoken Kasich or a higher-energy, better-packaged candidate. Rubio, in particular, has swooped into New Hampshire on a wave of momentum out of his better-than-expected Iowa caucus finish. He, more than any other candidate, challenges the notion that Kasich could be the traditional GOP alternative to Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

'More than winning'

The biggest difference between Kasich and the others?

"Life is about more than winning an election," he told voters this month at a town hall meeting in Newbury.

After the ups and downs of last year, Kasich is secure in himself. Yes, he wants to lead the free world. Yes, he believes he can fix the nation’s problems. Yes, that’s audacious.

But for Kasich, this campaign is about more than just the next step. It’s about his legacy. At 63, he has spent the last six months reminding the nation of where it would be without him and where he thinks it could go if it gave him one more shot.

Take, for example, his reaction to the support from the New York Times.

“Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, though a distinct underdog, is the only plausible choice for Republicans tired of the extremism and inexperience on display in this race,” the Times said in an editorial last weekend. “Mr. Kasich is no moderate. … Still, as a veteran of partisan fights and bipartisan deals during nearly two decades in the House, he has been capable of compromise and believes in the ability of government to improve lives.”

Conservatives took to social media to ridicule Kasich for earning the backing of a liberal editorial board. (The newspaper, for what it’s worth, made it clear it thought Clinton a better choice for president.)

For Kasich, the endorsement seemed validation of his philosophies and life’s work. In his mind, he had entered the ranks of the country’s most credible leaders.

“I believe this brand of conservatism … is the real brand: growth, opportunity, everybody gets a chance to rise,” Kasich said of the endorsement. (Eight New Hampshire newspapers and the Boston Globe have also endorsed him.)

For much of the campaign, Kasich had said if he didn’t win, he would go home and play more golf. Advisers pleaded with him to stop saying that.

Finally, he did.

“If I win, great. If I don’t win, I’m going to join another crusade. Because I’m not going to stop crusading until the day I die,” he said last month in Concord.

John Kasich could never have just retired and played golf.

But the Kasich who is running for president, who believes a first- or second-place finish on Tuesday will propel him to the White House, has caught the taste of the crusade.

It is, however unlikely, the crusade he started with.

Will he win New Hampshire?

The Enquirer's Chrissie Thompson and Meg Vogel are covering Kasich in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. Follow along at Cincinnati.com and on Twitter at @CThompsonENQ and @MegVogelPhoto.

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