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Ohio Gov. John Kasich told a New York City crowd Tuesday that the 2016 Republican primary has become a choice between a path where America is seen as broken or one where America realizes its greatness.
Without naming names, the speech included clear digs at Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who is currently dominating in the polls of New York voters and more subtle digs at Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who has the second highest amount of delegates in the race for the GOP nomination.
New York will vote April 19.
Kasich cautioned that “some who feed off of the fears and anger” felt by many Americans are doing it to “feed their own insatiable desire for fame and attention.”
“That could drive America down into a ditch, not make us great again,” he said, using Trump’s own campaign slogan – “Make America Great Again” – against him.
More subtle were the digs against Cruz. Listing a litany of policy proposals that he said would divide Americans, he cited a plan to target neighborhoods for surveillance and deport 11.5 million illegal immigrants – both proposals suggested by Cruz.
The speech, held at the Women’s National Republican Club across the street from Radio City Music Hall in New York City, held many of the same characteristics of Kasich’s past stump speeches – references to his childhood in a hard-scrabble Pennsylvania town, Kasich talking about the need to include “those who live in the shadows,” the poor, the disabled and the mentally ill.
And it included a recitation of his own achievements both in the House of Representatives and as the governor of Ohio.
But Kasich, in very strong language, cast the GOP primary as a choice between him and a more negative option.
“Will we turn our backs on the ideals of America that have seen us through for more than two centuries?” he asked. “Or, are we going to reaffirm that America is, in Ronald Reagan’s words, “This last best hope for man on earth? This is our choice.”
He dismissed the idea that America is “a broken place” and “no longer respected in the world,” saying that “those who continuously push that type of behavior are not worthy of the office they are seeking.”
“American leadership is at its finest when it buckles on that irrepressible ‘can do’ spirit that says anything is possible and that everyone can participate in America’s blessings,” he said, saying while the nation has “drifted” it can be restored again.
Less than an hour after his speech concluded Kasich’s campaign sent out a fundraising appeal based on his comments. DNC spokesman Mark Paustenbach sent out a statement saying Kasich’s criticism of Trump “rings hollow” and said Kasich has “been hard at work enacting the Trump agenda in Ohio.” He cited Kasich’s work defunding Planned Parenthood and cutting money for Ohio public schools. “Kasich shouldn’t get a free pass,” he said.
Kasich, meanwhile, was heading to Brooklyn, where he was to visit a Matzo bakery and a school for children with autism spectrum disorder.
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