Charles Krauthammer, Chris Wallace, and others have recently speculated that part of John Kasich’s purpose in staying in the Republican presidential race—thereby preventing Ted Cruz from having a one-on-one shot at Donald Trump—is the Ohioan’s desire to be Trump’s running mate. Whether that is Kasich’s motivation in running interference for Trump or not, the thought of a potential Trump-Kasich ticket must put a smile on President Obama’s face. For six long years, his centerpiece legislation has been horribly unpopular with the American people, and it is quite ripe for repeal in 2017. But it is hard to imagine a weaker Republican ticket on Obamacare than one featuring Donald Trump and John Kasich.
Neither one of these men has been in the trenches fighting Obamacare over these past many years, which alone is a big cause for concern. Yet their collective weakness on this issue goes way beyond even that. Trump has praised socialized medicine, has said he likes and would keep one of Obamacare’s most onerous and cost-spiking mandates, and has suggested he’d expand Medicaid even beyond its bloated Obamacare levels. Kasich, meanwhile, actively spearheaded the Obamacare Medicaid expansion in his state, suggesting along the way that he thinks he’ll likely receive divine rewards for his efforts.
After Mitt Romney couldn’t/wouldn’t make the case against Obamacare in 2012, one would have thought that Republican voters would make sure the party nominated a staunch opponent of Obamacare in 2016—someone who would openly champion a conservative, general-election-ready alternative that would lead, once and for all, to Obamacare’s repeal. Instead, we now face the real possibility of having a Republican ticket pairing two men, one who thinks a government monopoly over health care “works incredibly well” in Scotland, the other who expanded Obamacare while arguing that “when you die and get to the meeting with St. Peter, he’s probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small,” but “he is going to ask you what you did for the poor,” and you “better have a good answer.”
It leaves one’s head spinning, just as it is probably also leaving the American Founders spinning in their graves. Then again, there is still time for GOP voters to stop such a ticket from forming.
Jeffrey H. Anderson, author of “An Alternative to Obamacare,” is a Hudson Institute senior fellow.
