by Quentin Misiag
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CEDAR RAPIDS — Even when Ohio Gov. John Kasich set aside small blocks of time to meet with potential voters in Iowa, his true attention was directed to a state 1,200 miles away to the east: New Hampshire.
Case in point: When Iowa Democrats and Republicans crowd into school gymnasiums, churches, libraries, and the like to cast their vote for the next president on Feb. 1, Kasich will be on the ground in New Hampshire, campaigning from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Granite State over the Hawkeye State
After the 63-year-old Republican wraps up an early evening town hall in Alton, New Hampshire, on Feb. 4, he will have spent 76 days in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state since Jan. 1.
Since November 2012, Kasich has visited Iowa’s presidential testing waters fewer than 30 times in half a month’s time, according to a review of campaign travel information.
As he campaigned in Iowa over the past few months, the centrist Republican built a reputation as a blunt-talking eccentric and budget hawk who commonly name-dropped New Hampshire.
So was the case on Jan. 29, during his final Iowa visit before the caucuses.
“If you can’t go [to the caucuses] and help me, then, well, I don’t want to talk to ya,” Kasich joked, surrounded on all sides by a crowd of around 140 people during a visit to the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.
He has won the GOP endorsements from several New Hampshire newspapers, including the Concord Monitor. The New York Times and the Boston Globealso endorsed him as the GOP’s best choice heading into the general election.
Who’s in his political corner?
While a lack of travel to the state is obvious, Kasich has whipped together a core group of fervent supporters.
Rep. Mary Ann Hanusa, R-Council Bluffs, a former top aide to Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush as well as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is Kasich’s Iowa campaign chairwoman.
And although insisting he will remain neutral in the 2016 election, Grassley gave high praise to Kasich, boasting to Iowa crowds that the governor knows how to balance a budget and handle the political tensions that come with governing a swing state.
“He never stops, he wants to keep the momentum going,” Grassley said. “He succeeds because he can get people to pull together; he builds consensus … This is how he’s going to help keep the American dream alive.”
A possible silver lining
Even though Kasich is long gone from Iowa — as most other GOP candidates are competing hard here — there could be a silver lining for him.
That is, if his core group of Iowa backers are persuasive enough in caucus precincts.
Forty-five percent of the latest Iowa Poll respondents said they could be persuaded to change their minds before caucusing begins at 7 p.m. in Iowa.
In the final few weeks in the Iowa campaign, Kasich has turned parts of his overall political message from domestic economic development and his congressional tenure to forgiveness.
Jesting to the museum group, he said he would open a national presidential campaign office across the street, just so he can regularly eat locally made sauerkraut and perogies.
“By the way, I wish I would’ve spent more time in Iowa, but there’s only one of me to go around,” Kasich said, smiling.