WINDHAM, N.H. — Ohio Gov. John Kasich has staked much of his strategy for winning Tuesday’s Republican primary on reaching to voters outside of the party. And on Monday, it caught up with him, as one voter who said she was deciding between him, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, asked Kasich: “Why should I vote for you in the Democratic primary tomorrow?”
Kasich is running as a Republican, but he’s had problems with conservatives because he expanded Medicaid through Obamacare. So he’s pined most of his efforts on New Hampshire, where he’s talked about working with Democrats to end gridlock, in hopes of winning over independent voters who are able to vote in the Republican primary in the state’s semi-open system.
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He’s joked in recent days that perhaps he should be running in the Democratic primary given the number of Democrats who say they like him. On Monday, as he was in the midst of his final campaign blitz through the state on a snowy afternoon, he said, of Sanders and Clinton, “One of them is too hot, the other one is too cold. But I got the right temperature.”
Speaking inside a crowded but small chapel here, he said to the voter in an effort to get her vote, “I am for Bernie being president of Ben and Jerry’s. And as a result of that, I want them to give us free ice cream. I mean if we can get free everything, what about – not free ice cream? You know what? I’m an independent guy, nobody tells me what to do, but I’m not way out here. I mean, Bernie’s a socialist. That ain’t gonna happen. I mean, it’s not gonna happen. We’re not gonna tax people 95 percent.”
He went on to say, “I’m not trashing Bernie, I’m just telling you that’s just not gonna happen. The problem with Hillary is this: what’s the latest poll say? What’s the latest focus group?”
He said, “We can’t run America with pollsters. I’m conviced God created pollsters to make astrologers look accurate. The fact is, you want somebody who is going to bring dramatic change. I told you what’s gonna happen in the first 100 days.”
Kasich promised, “Nobody tells me what to do, but we do it with consensus, with smart people. But not with focus groups, and we gotta get hope back in the country again. Hillary’s too brittle and Bernie’s way out here in the extreme. I’m the right porridge. One of them is too hot, the other one is too cold. But I got the right temperature.”
Polls in the state suggest that Trump is well ahead in first place, but that Kasich has a chance to come in a distant second, a finish that would likely provide him with a justification to continue his campaign into later states.
