Kathleen Gray

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

Ohio Gov. John Kasich began a six-day tour of Michigan Wednesday looking for a good showing in the state next week and a victory in Ohio on March 15.

"If you’re a public servant, your job is to diagnose the problem and go ahead and fix it," Kasich told a couple hundred people in Grand Blanc. "I have two teenage daughters and I want the country to be better. I don’t want to drift anymore."

It was the beginning of a six-day bus tour across the state from Macomb to Marquette. But it wasn’t a great start for Kasich’s presidential campaign in Michigan.

The venue for his first stop, the Union at the University of Michigan, was a rare ghost town Wednesday because it is spring break on the Ann Arbor campus.

And then, the charter plane carrying Kasich and his campaign to Michigan “screwed up,” the Ohio governor said in a phone call to a few dozen supporters who did show up, and he couldn’t make it to the campaign stop.

“I would have flapped my arms and flown there myself if I could have,” he said. “But I’ll be in Michigan quite a bit in the next few days … and I’m going to ask the people of Michigan to give me a chance.”

Poll: Trump holds 10-point lead in Michigan GOP primary

In a 10-minute phone call with the people who showed up in Ann Arbor, Kasich said his experience in Ohio of cutting taxes and balancing budgets will serve him well if he’s elected president of the United States.

"We can’t operate with all this vitriol. It gets to ve about building personal relationships. If you don’t get anything done why are you there," he said in Grand Blanc. "Politics is no different than life. I surrender all the time when I go home. I find it easier when I surrender, but compromise is okay as long as you don’t sell out your principles."

But his path to the nomination is narrow: He has picked up 25 delegates in the states where primaries and caucuses have already been held, while front-runner Donald Trump has 316. He finished second in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts and hopes a good showing in Michigan will help him pivot to a victory in his home state of Ohio.

“We hope to do very well in Michigan and I’ll be spending a lot time there,” he said. “But Ohio is a must-win for me.”

When asked by reporters if he should drop out of the race to consolidate support behind another candidate like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and stop New York businessman Donald Trump, Kasich bristled.

"Maybe he's taking away votes from me. If he hadn't send one of his hit men up to Vermont, I would have beat Trump there," he said. "It comes down to can he win Florida and can I win Ohio."

Dorian Thompson played hooky from classes at Salem High School in Plymouth to come to Ann Arbor to see Kasich. The 18-year-old Plymouth resident already saw Kasich in Livonia two weeks ago and plans to see Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in Shelby Township on tonight.

“If it wasn’t for Hillary Clinton’s past, I probably would have liked her. And if it wasn’t for Bernie Sanders’ plan to bankrupt America, I might have considered them,” he said. “At this moment, I’m thinking about Cruz, Trump or Kasich.”

Janet and Jack Ficara came from Livonia to Ann Arbor to see the candidate they decided to support in the last couple of days.

“He exudes confidence and strength and he has the credentials to back it up,” Janet Ficara said. “Even when there were 17 candidates on the stage, he stood out.”

Jack Ficara said that Kasich, as governor, has had to make the necessary tough decisions to grow the economy in Ohio, and the other candidates don’t have that experience.

“I’m not sure what his path is to the nomination,” Jack Ficara said. “But if he can get to the convention, John has a shot at it.”

Kasich also has events scheduled Wednesday in Warren, with multiple other stops across the state leading up to Michigan’s primary election on Tuesday. Rubio will be in Shelby Township tonight. And Trump will be in Warren and Cadillac on Friday. Democrat Bernie Sanders will be at a rally at Michigan State University in East Lansing on Wednesday evening.

As he does at every campaign stop, Kasich joked about being from Ohio and U-M trustee Andrew Richner, a Kasich supporter, joked that he had a special hat for the OSU alum -- one that carried the maize block M.

"I was hoping to get Jim Harbaugh on the campaign bus with me," Kasich said, referring to U-M's football coach. "And if that happened, maybe I could have gone to the Middle East and parted the Red Sea."

He said that people with credibility - like former University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembecler, Bill Gates or Warren Buffett -- are needed to help clean up departments in the federal government, like the Internal Revenue Service. He did acknowledge he was sucking up to the crowd by mentioning Schembecler.

Contact: Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal