Ohio Gov. John Kasich spun his failure to win a single state Super Tuesday by comparing Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to Pepsi’s infamous Crystal soft drink.
“Senator Rubio has been more hyped than Crystal Pepsi, but he has flopped even worse. Even a well-conceived, high-financed marketing campaign won’t work if people don’t want to buy the product,” the governor’s campaign team said late Tuesday evening.
“That’s the Rubio campaign’s problem. Behind the nice packaging, voters are discovering there is little substance. A candidate isn’t going to out-talk Donald Trump to the nomination. It’s going to take a candidate who has produced results. Only John Kasich can consolidate the Republican Party and win in November,” it added.
Pepsi sold its Crystal brand soft drink from 1992 to 1993. The selling point was that the drink was clear. It was pulled from shelves within a year after sales plummeted.
Billionaire businessman Donald Trump cleaned up Super Tuesday, racking up wins in Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia and Massachusetts.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, won Oklahoma and Texas. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., went home winning Minnesota.
Both Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson failed to win a single one of the 12 states up for grabs Tuesday.
Nevertheless, the Ohio governor’s team is arguing that the “best choice moving forward for Republicans who want to stop Donald Trump and win the White House.”
“Ted Cruz bet it all on today, spending more than any other candidate. He needed an overwhelming delegate lead to have a shot at winning the nomination, and he fell short. The end of the road is nearing for him,” Kasich’s team said in a statement. “With the race beginning to move north, he has no ability to grow beyond his current level of support.”
The bottom line, they said, is that they are executing their “campaign plan and John Kasich is the best choice moving forward for Republicans who want to stop Donald Trump and win the White House.”
As the other candidates underperform against Trump, the governor’s team argued, Kasich is uniquely positioned to upset the order of things, despite that he hasn’t won a single primary race.
“John Kasich spent the last month playing an away game, but now the race is moving onto his home turf and the race will fully reset when it gets to Ohio on March 15. It’s clear from tonight’s results that voters move into the Kasich column when they hear the governor’s uplifting message. With the race shifting north and more and more supporters investing in the Kasich campaign, our position has never been stronger,” his team said,
“According to internal data from March 1 states, twice as many Rubio second-choice voters go to Kasich than to Trump. Rubio’s presence in the race is keeping Republicans from consolidating around Governor Kasich — and as the race moves toward states more fertile for Governor Kasich this dynamic can be expected to become more pronounced,” it added.
The governor’s team bragged that he’s projected to perform well in his state of Ohio, and they drew a contrast with Rubio, who is losing in the polls in Florida to Trump.
“Rubio can’t beat Trump in either Florida or Ohio and would enable Trump to become the nominee,” the governor’s team said. “Only John Kasich can win Ohio, stop Trump, unite the Party and defeat Hillary Clinton.”
In all of Kasich’s team’s talk about stopping Trump, the Ohio governor has been loath to criticize the casino tycoon in the primary debates and on the trail. In fact, the statement Tuesday evening marks one of the few times that the Ohio governor has stated clearly that he would like to defeat the current GOP front-runner.
