The person most surprised by the reaction to Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s visit to the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s conference in Washington, D.C., may have been the governor himself.
The audience of conservative Christians greeted Kasich with a warm response that appeared to meet or exceed the reaction that other presidential contenders drew on Friday. But Kasich appeared visibly taken aback by the amount of press that swarmed him after he finished his speech. Audience and press interest in Kasich was high.
In the past, Kasich has relied on his faith to insulate him from conservative criticism of his more controversial positions. In 2013, he used his Christian faith to explain away his decision to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, saying, “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.”
On Friday, Kasich focused more heavily on how his own faith journey, rather than how it influences his public policy decisions.
“Like many, many young people, the Lord became a rabbit’s foot for me: Pull it out on test day, pull it out on Election Day. ‘Come on Lord I got the rabbit’s foot,'” Kasich said.
Then his parents died in a car crash with a drunk driver, and Kasich acknowledged he has struggled to maintain his faith in the decades since.
“I’ve wrestled with it all, and the more I wrestle the stronger I get. The more I wrestle the stronger the foundation I’m trying to build my house upon,” he said. “I don’t believe in shoving my views down anybody’s throat…C.S. Lewis, in a book I was reading last night, said he can’t even live up to his own principles, and I don’t either. I’m a failed guy.”
Kasich might have been seeking reconciliation with members of his own party that disapproved of his past decisions — some tax increases, expansion of Medicaid and support for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. He talked about the need to be humble and insisted that he did not choose to attend the event because of politics, but because Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, had asked him to appear.
In answer to questions from reporters, Kasich downplayed the influence his Christian faith has had on his actions as governor. “I don’t like, ‘OK let me open the Bible and figure out what I’m going to do today,'” he said. “Doesn’t work that way.”
Earlier this week, Kasich told Time that he viewed the Republican Party as “my vehicle, not my master.” While on stage, Kasich indicated that he viewed his faith as preparing him for the “world that’s yet to come.”
“The most important thing about faith is what you do and not what you say,” Kasich told reporters. “I think you have to be careful about it [faith] because people are kind of radioactive to it and its unfortunate. But I’m going to do the best I can to be positive and hopeful.”
In order to win the nomination, Kasich will likely need conservatives to forgive and forget what they perceive as his transgressions in Ohio. For his part, the governor will likely look to remind voters that he carried 86 of Ohio’s 88 counties in his successful reelection bid.
