CLEVELAND — Ohio Gov. John Kasich said he never would have decided to run for president if his sole purpose was to win the White House.
Speaking alongside his wife, Karen Kasich, onstage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Kasich explained what his presidential campaign was really about.
“There is no way that I would have ever entered the race for president just to win an election,” Kasich said. “My wife would never have permitted me ever to race just because it’s to win an election.”
He continued, “The reason why you get into politics is because you want to bring about profound change and the things you want to do have to come from your soul, they have to come from your heart, they have to come from your brain. And they don’t come from polling or calculations or statistics.”
The governor revealed that he left the race abruptly in May because “to go forward, I would have to tell people things that I didn’t think were true. I couldn’t reconcile that.”
Kasich explains how he decided to leave the 2016 race at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame #RNCinCLE pic.twitter.com/75FbkjNYKE— Ryan Lovelace (@LovelaceRyanD) July 19, 2016
Kasich spoke in front of signs featuring a modified version of his campaign slogan, “Kasich for Us” to “Always for Us” accompanying the Kasich logo.
Kasich visited with Republicans across Cleveland on Tuesday and has plans for additional events on Wednesday, but he has no intention of entering the convention hall at Quicken Loans Arena. Whether he will choose to support GOP nominee Donald Trump this fall remains to be seen, but he has yet to officially rule it out.
