For the Republican Nomination, Kasich is the Obvious Choice

In what has been a long and bloody battle between an almost impossibly-crowded field, it has at times seemed difficult to imagine a singular, best-qualified candidate in this cycle’s Republican primary. However, the admirably-full schedule of debates, along with the candidates’ collective willingness to go after their opponents’ records and positions has indeed thinned the herd, and we believe that there is finally a clear choice for our endorsement: Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Kasich's appeal comes on its own merits but is no doubt aided by the shortcomings of the other campaigns. We find front-runner Donald Trump’s candidacy troubling on many levels. While we understand, appreciate and to some degree even share much of the anger and frustration that seem to unite many of his followers, we find Mr. Trump’s platform to be little more than an appeal to our worst inclinations: nativism, xenophobia, racism and the sort of dark and misdirected populist anger that has sown the fascist seeds of some of history’s most despotic regimes.

We are nearly as troubled with his low-level grasp of the issues and seeming unwillingness to even begin to contemplate a detailed platform that serious voters might inspect. It is almost as though it is not yet worth his time to invest in educating himself on important matters of the office. Mr. Trump compares himself to other candidates almost exclusively in terms of whether they are "low-energy" or "high-energy" (the latter of which only he seems to have attained) and then dismisses each in turn as being "terrible," referring only to polling as evidence, except when the polling does not suit his argument.

Mr. Trump seems to suggest that he should be elected purely on the merit that he has built tremendous wealth through private enterprise and would therefore be best suited to decide every major issue and crisis our nation faces on a case by case basis. He claims he will surround himself with the best people but never says whom, and answers each question of "how" with a smirk and variations on the "we just will" response. We expect a tremendous amount of substance from a candidate for President of the United States, and Mr. Trump seems to be completely lacking in that department. For all of these reasons, we find him completely unqualified to lead this nation.

We find the prospect of a presidency involving Trump’s closest rival, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, to be equally troubling. Cruz is more organized in his approach and has perhaps done a more effective job of pandering to certain elements of the party, but he has demonstrated a stunning willingness to engage in dangerous political games that risk the greater good in favor of his own personal gain, such as shutting down the federal government.

As a result, we don’t feel like we get a sense of who Senator Cruz is, though it is worth noting that even many of his Republican colleagues in Congress reportedly dislike him on a personal level. More importantly, we get no sense of the boundaries as to what he would or wouldn’t do as President. His team’s tactical effort through surrogates to win votes from evangelicals in Iowa by spreading the rumor that Dr. Ben Carson had suspended his campaign, gives us further pause about his character and trustworthiness. We find him unqualified for the office of President.

The narrative in the mainstream media suggests that, based on his third place performance in Iowa, Senator Marco Rubio has emerged as the "establishment alternative" to Mr. Trump and Senator Cruz. Rubio has done an effective job of sticking to a tightly-scripted stump speech filled with carefully crafted talking points and has demonstrated great discipline in staying on message. While many Republicans outside of Florida might find this impressive, we know Senator Rubio far too well and see too many contradictions between his rhetoric and his record.

What little Senator Rubio has offered in terms of a concrete platform has been even more troubling than the overall lack of specificity in his campaign. Even the deeply-conservative Tax Foundation estimated that his plan to cut taxes would blow a $6 trillion hole in the budget. Coupled with Rubio’s aggressive posturing on foreign policy and promise to never, under any circumstances, reduce the Pentagon budget, we see too many similarities to the Bush administration and the neo-conservative dogma that plagued this country for eight years and continues to saddle our nation with debt that will be generational.

We also doubt Senator Rubio’s authenticity. Everything from his personal narrative to his core beliefs seem flexible and contrived. He claims to rail against the establishment, but as a member of our state legislature, he proved himself to be nothing if not a business-as-usual politician. His misuse of party and PAC credit cards, his questionable personal finances and his ascent from a run-of-the-mill lawyer to a highly-paid attorney for a firm that specialized in lobbying the government–which coincided with his rise to the Speaker of the Florida House–suggest a climber whose own ambitions trump any sort of character-defining principles.

Senator Rubio claims to be for working class Americans, for whom the Senator says he wants to preserve the opportunity to live the same American Dream under which he has prospered. Yet, he was perfectly willing to sell out those Americans and shill for big businesses who wanted more H-1B visas with less restrictions in order to bring in foreigners who could take American jobs, which will depress wages while adding more skilled American workers to a safety net that Senator Rubio himself seems eager to dismantle. Senator Rubio’s own pathway to prosperity–namely spending his entire adult life in politics and becoming quite wealthy in doing so–is not a viable path for the millions of Americans left behind in this economy. More to the point, he hasn’t offered a compelling vision for one.

When confronted with the facts of his record, Senator Rubio goes into his scripted talking points, which cast every negative aspect of his candidacy as lies told by his Democratic opponents and repeated by a liberal media. This may be a satisfactory answer among his most devoted supporters, but it will not pass the muster in a general election, where we do not see him surpassing the 47 percent threshold that party identification all but guarantees any candidate in a two-party race. Furthermore, we simply do not find him a qualified candidate for our nation’s highest office.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush began the race as one of the more credible candidates in the field. He has, however, demonstrated a stunning inability to connect with Republican voters, despite an unprecedented financial advantage on the onset and tremendous name recognition. We believe he has proven himself unelectable at this level. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie also entered the race as a seemingly-viable candidate, but has had no better luck gaining traction with voters and has not communicated a well-developed platform that might suggest he should be given a closer look.

Dr. Ben Carson has consistently proven himself to be woefully unprepared for the vast complexities of the American Presidency. While we understood the initial attraction of an intelligent and accomplished outsider with a calm demeanor, especially in today’s toxic political environment, Dr. Carson is simply unqualified for the office, and there is no evidence to suggest that will change in the immediate future.

In deep contrast to most of the candidates mentioned, John Kasich has a long record of meaningful experience that, coupled with a detailed platform, make him stand out among the crowded field. During his nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Governor Kasich was an effective legislator and his experience on the House Budget Committee, which included six years as chair and a key role in passing the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, demonstrate an ability to work with others to pass major initiatives.

Aided by his 18 years of experience on the House Armed Services Committee, he is also the candidate that has spoken most directly about his foreign policy ideas, offering concrete plans to deal with ISIS, Iran and the rest of the Middle East, while his opponents offer little more than saber rattling, empty bluster or talk of "carpet-bombing" entire nations or regions of the world. When it comes to both foreign policy and defense, Governor Kasich is far and away the candidate we trust most with America’s future.

There is also no questioning Governor Kasich’s conservative bonafides. He’s taken on unions, opposed same sex marriage and has been strongly pro-life, working to limit abortions in his state. However, as both a Congressman and governor, Kasich has also proven himself to be effectively pragmatic and willing to reach across the aisle in order to get things done. We do not agree with the element of the Republican Party that would hold that against him. Quite the opposite, we think that dynamic makes him much more attractive as a candidate to lead and help unify such a polarized government.

We also feel it is worth noting that Governor Kasich has, during this campaign, communicated a positive and hopeful message that promises to move our country forward in a conservative direction, while resisting the politics of fear or the temptation to pander in a way that might help him gain support today, only to render him unelectable in November–a dynamic that continues to threaten the Republican Party on the national level.

We found Governor Kasich to be a well-qualified and attractive candidate to begin with, but among a disappointing field of substandard offerings, we see him as the only Republican candidate who has a chance to effectively communicate the conservative message in November and connect with general election voters, something that is clearly needed in order to put a Republican in the White House. For these reasons, we endorse Governor John Kasich as the Republican candidate for President of the United States.