SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS—It was short sleeve weather here yesterday–bare chest weather if you were one of the supporters at a Trump rally just across the way–so it was a surprise when the very last question at John Kasich's town hall gathering seemed to surprise the candidate.

"It's 60 degrees here in Massachusetts," the questioner began. What would the Ohio governor do about climate change, and what did he think about COP 21, the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference?

"They should have been over there talking about ISIS," was Kasich's cranky response. Not that Kasich was denying climate change, he went on to clarify–after all, over the course of 10 separate visits to Montana's Glacier National Park with his wife, "We've seen the glaciers shrinking"—and, "I do believe we're affecting the climate." But the focus should be shifted from the how's and why's and if's to a more pragmatic business response. "Here's what I do know: I know we need to develop all of the renewables, and we need to do it in an orderly way."

It's not like Kasich hasn't had a lot of time to come up with some better talking points. He's been positioning and repositioning himself in what was once a very crowded field of Creationists, Young Earth scientists, and Mount Ararat archeologists for months now. And it's not like he hasn't had occasion to experience climate change–it was 48 degrees in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 31 and 58 degrees in Concord, New Hampshire, on February 1. And should he lack for informed advisers, well, the June 15, 2001 statement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on global climate change offers former altar boy Kasich some pretty good instruction.

He had finessed it slightly better in Vermont a week ago. "I know that human beings affect the climate," Kasich told a town hall crowd at Colchester High School. "I know it's an apostasy in the Republican Party to say that. I guess that's what I've always been—being able to challenge some of the status quo."

And that's how Kasich has become the last best hope for those who are quickly running out of ways to derail the Trump juggernaut.

"I like the fact that he's thinking about it, " said Jim Giebotowski, the man who asked the climate change question. "Maybe a little more thoughtful answer would have been in order….what we can do to lead the world into climate changing. Irrespective of whether it's a liberal or a conservative position, what's America's leadership with regard to climate change?" Giebotowski, who owns a small voice-over business making tapes for automated response services, had driven out from Weston to hear Kasich. He had watched the South Carolina debate on TV and found Kasich "clear, practical, compassionate, and tough. It was nice to see dignified discourse back in the discussion."

Giebotowski is an unenrolled voter–Massachusettsese for independent voter—and in another lifetime, he voted for Clinton-Gore. Most recently, he pulled the lever for Romney-Ryan. He is exactly the kind of voter the Boston Globe was trying to rally when it went to DEFCON 3 a week ago. "Stopping Donald J. Trump is imperative—and not just for his fellow Republicans," the paper editorialized. Unenrolled voters "should pull a Republican ballot and vote for John Kasich because it's a vote against Donald Trump." The against vote is not merely symbolic: The Commonwealth's 42 GOP convention delegates are allocated proportionally, and any kept out of Trump's hands will carry through to the Convention.

Yesterday, the Detroit Free Press made a similar pitch. If Trumps wins the nomination, "which will seem nearly inevitable if he wins the majority of Super Tuesday primaries this week, the nation will face an electoral crisis of conscience and morality that it hasn't seen since the 1960s." While Michigan's March 8 party primary is also an open primary, the paper was specific in addressing Michigan Republicans. In a damning with faint praise list of Kasich's accomplishments–no getting around the fact that Kasich is, after all, a union buster–on "the most pressing issue of our times" the editorial notes, Kasich gets a plus mark. "Kasich accepts the reality of climate change."

On the voting front, however, hope is making one last stand against reality. "President Kasich? We'd hardly stand up and cheer," acknowledged the Free Press ."But among the choices available on GOP side, it's the best outcome available."

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io