Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, took office as a Tea Party hero, unafraid of the union bosses and welfare lobbyists who would fight his efforts to shrink Ohio’s bloated government. He leaves as an honorary union member who was inducted to a hospital lobbying group’s Hall of Fame.

Kasich beat incumbent Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland in 2010 by promising to deliver job growth with smaller government, labor reform, and opposition to Obamacare. Kasich “was in the Tea Party before there was a Tea Party,” he said during the campaign, leveraging a reputation for fiscal conservatism built when he was House Budget Committee chairman in the 1990s.