Ohio governor's debate plan: Say 'Ohio,' not 'Trump'

CLEVELAND — If ever there were a debate for John Kasich to nail, Thursday’s Fox News presidential opener is it.

The country’s political journalists have descended on northeast Ohio, site of the first GOP debate and the convention that will nominate the party’s presidential candidate next summer.

No Republican has ever won the White House without winning the Buckeye State, you’ll read in every national newspaper and hear on every TV station. And there, on the debate stage to bring home the message, will be the purple state’s Republican governor. Let me explain Ohio to you, he’ll say. This is how you win here.

In other words: This is how I can win here.

“We’ve tried a lot of other approaches the last couple of cycles that haven’t worked,” Matt Borges, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party and a Kasich supporter, said of his party’s aspirations to win the White House. “It’s the most critical swing state. ... It certainly makes sense to me to have a candidate, potentially, who’s from here, to hold the first debate here, to host the convention here.”

Kasich needs the attention more than he’ll say. Of the 10 Republicans on the stage, he has the lowest name recognition.

He also has some moderate stances that might hurt him with GOP primary voters, such as his position that people living in the U.S. without proper documentation should be allowed to register and stay, or his support for Common Core and for Medicaid expansion under President Obama’s health care law.

A debate in Ohio offers perhaps the best opportunity for Kasich to sell Republicans on the idea of being open to his stances. Kasich will try to introduce himself as the field’s elder statesman, reminding voters that he helped balance the federal budget as a congressman in the late 1990s. And, you know, that he’s the two-term governor of a state called Ohio.

That is, if he gets enough chances to talk. Kasich’s 10th-place finish in Fox News’ pre-debate average of national polls qualified him for the stage, but ensured he’ll stand farthest from center stage. That honor goes to business mogul Donald Trump, who is leading the Republican field in polls.

Even limiting the 17-person GOP field to 10 candidates means candidates can only hope for a few minutes to make their mark in the two-hour debate.

Kasich has already milked the debate for an extra boost in publicity. On Tuesday, Fox announced Kasich narrowly qualified for the 9 p.m. affair, thanks to a couple-percentage-point polling boost that followed his July 21 campaign launch. Kasich’s upward move in polls bumped former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to the 5 p.m. so-called Kiddie Table debate of the seven bottom-dwellers in the polls.

As a result, headlines across the country Tuesday and Wednesday proclaimed: “Kasich in, Perry out.” Chalk one up for name recognition.

Kasich will take all the help he can get. In a national poll conducted in the last week by Monmouth University, 58% of Republicans didn’t know enough about Kasich to have an opinion about him. That’s 13 percentage points higher than anyone else on the main stage.

The name-ID deficit means Kasich won’t try to attack the front-runner, Trump. He’ll try to sell his experience in Congress and his ethic for the poor to the millions tuning in to the debate.

Kasich’s rise in the polls — small nationally, but more significant in early-primary state New Hampshire — serves as an “I told you so” to doubters. Many warned he launched his campaign too late and warned his message would be lost amid the firestorm of news surrounding all things Trump.

His qualification for the national debate gives him credence with donors.

But it also opens him to attacks. They might come in the debate, in his home state. They might come in New Hampshire, where he’s polling as high as second.

They might come in Cleveland, outside the debate itself.

But they’re unlikely to come from Trump, said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire-based GOP strategist.

“Kasich has a different story to tell, and I’m not sure that Trump intrudes on Kasich’s story the way he does on some of the others,” he said. Assuming Kasich gets at least a few minutes to communicate on the national stage, Rath said, “I don’t see how there’s a downside for him.”

Kasich this week tiptoed into the question of Trump’s poll strength, saying the business mogul’s outbursts have tapped into Americans’ frustrations with their government.

“I understand that frustration. Who doesn’t? The question is, how do you deal with it?” Kasich said. “You’ve got to show you can do it. It’s not just about talking rhetoric, I don’t think, in the minds of the public. It’s about people who can produce.”