The New Yorker: John Kasich’s Quest for Glorious Martyrdom

By Jonathan Chait, Jun. 10, 2015

John Kasich is a highly popular governor of a vital swing state, possessed of national experience and long-standing ties to his party’s financial and ideological elite. He is launching a presidential campaign that stands virtually no chance of success, if you define “success” to mean acquiring the nomination. It looks increasingly likely, however, that Kasich defines success as something else altogether.

Kasich began his career in a dissident role. As the Republican Party careened in the 1980s and 1990s toward militant supply-side economics, Kasich carved out an identity as an old-fashioned deficit hawk. Kasich was evangelical on the subject of deficit reduction and conciliatory on the fervent class-war issues that increasingly animated his party. He wanted to cut wasteful defense spending and tax loopholes first, finding a way to square fiscal conservatism with populism.

As the chairman of the House Budget Committee during what was then called “the Republican Revolution,” the frothy period after the GOP took control of the House for the first time in four decades, he tried to steer the revolution his way. He failed. I profiled Kasich in 1998, after his populist ambitions had dissolved into empty platitudes. Kasich was the kind of populist figure his party’s Establishment liked having around — long on folksy slogans, short on substantive disagreement.

More: www.nymag.com