Kasich touts resume, sends condolences to VP Biden on Meet the Press

Gov. John Kasich said Sunday he is “optimistic” about the campaign money he is collecting for a run for the presidency next year, but repeated that if he does not believe he can win the Republican nomination he “wouldn’t do it because I don’t want to burden my family.”

Our Washington Bureau reporter Jack Torry reports that in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Kasich said he is “becoming more and more optimistic about the organization” he is developing, but insisted he does not need to run for president “to have a good life. But I think I can help serve my country.”

Kasich is expected to officially enter the race this summer. He has traveled to the early primary states of New Hampshire, South Carolina and Georgia, while avoiding any campaign trips to Iowa, whose caucuses next January will be the first presidential contest.

Kasich also took time to praise Vice President Joe Biden, whose son Beau, 46, died Saturday night of brain cancer. Pointing out that Biden’s first wife and infant daughter were killed in a car crash in 1972, Kasich said he does not “always agree with him, but you know Joe Biden is a special guy.”

‘You think about this: He lost a wife, a daughter and now a son and he continues to serve,” Kasich said, calling Biden “a real stand-up guy. I’m going to pray for him because he’s had a lifetime of tears.”

Kasich served in the U.S. House when Biden was a Democratic senator from Delaware.

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