Kasich is sink or swim for the Republican Party. Those are the stakes.

I know what you think of him; he’s the hunchbacked fellow in the debates who won’t pause for breath and chops the air like a judo master. And I know what you think of me. Go into the Georgetown tea parties, the eating clubs, they all say Nixon is finished, that his word is no better than a dead man's. Well, write this on the blackboard a thousand times: running Kasich is crucial to ’16 and our survival.

Ignore it if you want, but this might be the last time I save your neck.

I won’t bother with a laundry list of Kasich’s record. Buy a newspaper. He’s got 62% approval in Ohio, and was re-elected after the press left him for dead. He went in guns blazing from the right, hitting unions, that sort of thing, but when that didn’t fly, he backed off. Unions have a seat at the table now, but they know who’s boss. He balanced the budget, expanded Medicaid for the poor. Even Democrats vote for him.

Kasich’s got the trick of winning elections: plant a foot on the enemy’s ground and claim it as your own. We rode it to 49 states in ’72, and now Kasich is the only one who understands that purity is for popes and beauty queens. As the saying goes, he’s conservative, but not a conservative—and if you question the difference or think it disqualifies, go back to the damn faculty lounge and let men take care of this.

Because it will take a strong man. Oh, yes. Make no mistake. Naturally it could be a woman — I’m aware of that; send your letters elsewhere — but when the likely candidate from the Democrat side is either a grandmother who takes polls on her favorite color, or a guy with the manner and politics of the Rosenbergs, who will stand up?

Kasich has been strong for us for years and he listens when we talk. pic.twitter.com/d7zDWZPmhJ — Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) December 17, 2015

Trump? My God, the moment he’s nominated every broker on Wall Street will lock himself in the toilet with a bottle of rye and a pistol. Stocks will drop through the floor, pension funds will dry up, and what the hell will Trump do? Flex his muscles at a blonde?

Cruz? He’s known to be the worst poker player in Ivy League history. And it shows. He has what they call a “tell;” when he lies his expression is like a child with a full diaper. Relief, satisfaction. A little fear. We’ve all met fellows like Cruz. They end up in jail or the priesthood. He’s a Bircher, and the Chinese will spit him out like cabbage.

Cruz is one of just a few on the team who can hit, so all you bastards jump to calling him Gehrig. — Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) January 21, 2016

Rubio? You know the fellow with the lead in the play at the community center? He has the lines, however dumb they are, and some of the emotion. But the work shows. Rubio is young and clean and talks like he drank a pot of coffee, but it’s the same old thing: blockade China, arm Iraqi Kurds in the name of God and Thomas Jefferson. And he drinks water when troubled, which seems to be a sort of death wish.

Christie? He has the political agility of a fellow twice his size. The bridge thing, I don’t care. No one likes to admit it but there’s always a victim in politics. But his people wrote it all down, and he didn’t create a system of loyalty. Outworking the press takes more than big shoulders; you have to be subtle. If you can’t, then quit beating up on girls and run for dogcatcher. At this point I think only dogs respect him.

Bush? He’s in the last lap of a race he spent 15 years forgetting to run. He did a decent job in Florida, but his arms and legs can’t bear the weight now. They cracked. A bay breeze would blow him over. He takes pride in the Schiavo thing, he gave his brother a big, fat kiss on Iraq — have you ever seen a politician so much a day late and a dollar short? Bush fights by dropping his arms and taking shots in the nose, then later he sends a card warning the other fellow to be nice. It’s enough to make you wish for his old man.

This used to be a game for men. pic.twitter.com/9225yJm2ZP — Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) September 21, 2015

And then Kasich. Governor of Ohio, the state that’s picked every president since ‘64. By God we have to be cold on this, now and for the future; if you’re 30 years old with a good job, you don’t give a damn about gays or immigrants, you want strength abroad but you think twice before using the nuclear bomb, where do you go? Some 10-cent demagogue? Or the one who, as you do, calls the traffic cop an idiot and looks out for the little guy?

A lot of people hate me. But they respect me because I win. — Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) January 29, 2016

Run Kasich, or the know-nothings — Palin, Kim Davis, Bundy, every son of a bitch who’d take this country back to the Articles of Confederation, or worse — will finally get the keys to the liquor cabinet. Another generation of kids will go to the other side.

The Republicans will go the way of flagpole sitters. And with your pockets empty and your back to the wall, you’ll look for Nixon to show the way out.

But I’m tired of being taken for granted, see. All these years, you should have invited me through the front door.

Richard Nixon never left us. With the help of playwright Justin Sherin, he continues to speak his mind as @dick_nixon on Twitter.