In a normal political year, John Kasich would be on a remarkable roll.
He has won the editorial-endorsement primary by a knockout. Those endorsements are all based on the same basic notion: Kasich, the former congressman from, and now governor of, Ohio, is an experienced leader with a record of accomplishment that reflects his penchant for working across the partisan aisle. Meanwhile, his team of New Hampshire backers, which incudes former U.S. senators John Sununu and Gordon Humphrey, former House member Chuck Douglas, and former attorney general Tom Rath, is more impressive than anything anyone else has assembled.
Here, however, is the question: In this year of anti-establishment acrimony, do those traditional political cues matter? After all, in Iowa, Ted Cruz, bête noire to the establishment, carried the day, followed by Donald Trump, whom Republican regulars see as almost anathematic. The only establishment-acceptable candidate to post a respectable Iowa showing was third-place winner Marco Rubio.
The Kasich camp thinks they do. Certainly they certify the central notion of his candidacy. And for the last week or so, while the other candidates were trying to corral Iowa caucus-goers, he's had the Granite State stage virtually to himself.
On Monday, yet another New Hampshire poll put him in second place behind Trump, and with some separation from the rest of the field.
His crowds are getting steadily better, his media contingent bigger. And yet, at around 200 for a midmorning town meeting in Greenland, and 90 or so at similar evening event in Loudon, they're more indicative of a mild current flowing his way than a wave about to break.
In a campaign when most of the Republican hopefuls are as grim as a team of overworked morticians, Kasich remains positive and upbeat. Indeed, his tone has become an important part of his message: America needs an experienced, positive, optimistic, collegial problem-solver.
Emphasis on the positive.
New Day for America, the super PAC supporting him, was about to put up a negative TV ad (one targeting Marco Rubio), Kasich tells a crowd of about 200 in Greenland. Legally, he can't coordinate with the super PAC--and so he hasn't talked in months to the Bible-study-group friend who is running it, he said. But his campaign team objected on Twitter, and the PAC pulled it. Every campaign should follow suit, Kasich said.
"My good friends Chris Christie and Jeb Bush--they should take their negative nonsense off television," he declared. "Put what you're for on the air so [voters] can make a good judgment in the last week of this campaign."
That line drew long, loud applause from his Greenland crowd. Similarly, when Kasich asserted in Loudon that his positive campaign was proving conventional wisdom wrong, the crowd was equally enthusiastic.
Clearly, some voters are turning Kasich's way because they've had enough of this year's angry, sour campaign. It's like watching a bunch of school kids, said retiree Roger Thompson, an independent from Stratham who came to see Kasich in Greenland. In true New Hampshire fashion, he's still making up his mind, but Kasich, with his positive message, has "pretty much" sold him, he said.
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Scot Lehigh is a columnist for the Boston Globe.
Editorial on 02/04/2016