MOUNT VERNON — John Kasich, the featured speaker at Saturday’s Lincoln Day Dinner held by the Knox County Republican Party, recalled advice from his mother that he said has never left him.
“Stick your neck out, and look out for people,” she told him as a boy growing up in McKees Rocks, Pa., a working-class area where many had fallen on hard economic times. He said she told him more than once that if he was ever in a position in his life to make the lives of others better, he should do it.
Kasich, who served nine terms as an Ohio congressman, written two best-selling books and is a media personality for Fox News, said he feels the time may be coming for him to re-enter politics, this time as a Republican candidate in Ohio’s next governor’s race. His announcement was met with loud applause.
“I thought I was done with politics,” he told the Republican party members gathered at The Dan Emmett Conference Center for the annual fundraiser. “I owe this state, and our state is dying. We’ve lost 15,000 jobs since we’ve had our new governor, and if we do not take drastic action we are not going to recover from this.”
Kasich, who writes and speaks against the size of government, which he calls “too fat, bloated, and out of control” said he believes a back-to-basics approach is what’s needed to restore Ohio’s economy.
Kasich told the crowd how an unjustified bill that he received in 1970 while an 18-year-old freshman at the Ohio State University led him to a meeting with the university president; then through his persistence, a 20-minute meeting with former President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office.
He went on to campaign for former President Ronald Reagan, and said he learned much while working with Reagan.
Kasich said that after a period of corruption at the state and national level, he believes that honesty and integrity are overdue, and also called for the acceptance of personal responsibility.
He also said teamwork is sorely needed in the country, calling it a “missing virtue.”
Improvements in education and a repeal of the inheritance tax, as well as a removal of the Ohio income tax, are all ideas that met with positive responses from the audience.
Saying that Republicans are often criticized for favoring the rich, Kasich said he believes keeping wealthy Ohioans in the state, many of whom leave for other regions each year, is a good idea.
“I want their brains, their money, and their entrepreneurship,” he said.
Kasich, who lives in Westerville, told the Knox Country crowd that he considered them neighbors, and that the current direction of the state troubles him.
Campaign literature for next month’s primary was scattered around the room, and buttons proclaiming candidates were on many lapels. Party chairman Bill Moody introduced over 20 candidates at the end of the evening, most of whom were present.
Carol Sue Owens of the Lincoln Day Committee took the podium to announce former Mount Vernon Councilwoman Nancy Vail was named Knox County’s Republican of the Year.
“For the past 28 years she has represented our party with dignity, class and grace as an elected official in both city and county government,” Owens said.
Vail took the opportunity to call for party unity in a year which will see Republicans jockeying for the party’s nomination in more than one race in the county.
“Look after one another,” she told the other members of the party. “No one can do a campaign alone. Every one of you is needed.”
