John Kasich on leading: "You've got to be cool as a cucumber"
If Wednesday night's raucous Republican debate was a "demolition derby" as Ohio governor John Kasich put it to reporters, then the backdrop to his speech in Irvine, California the next day provided a serene post-debate counterbalance to the fireworks.
Kasich had come to wealthy and Republican Orange County to speak at a luncheon hosted by the New Majority PAC, California's largest Republican PAC.
Though Kasich delivered a solid, if not flashy, performance in CNN's marathon three-hour debate Wednesday, he's still struggling to find his footing in the loud and crowded GOP field. At the lunch, he even referred to himself as "still largely unknown nationally." But he made it clear he's going to stick to his lower-key approach, and he talked with the group about his thoughts on leadership and the way forward for his candidacy.
"You know what's really important when you're a leader?" Kasich said, as audience members munched on salads. "Tone. You know, it's not like stridency and anger and you've got to be cool. You've got to be cool as a cucumber when you are a leader. You get too worked up, people begin to worry about your judgment."
While that may have been a subtle jab at frontrunner Donald Trump, who has repeatedly mocked candidates for their "low energy" and lashed out at those who criticize him, Kasich wouldn't bite on a Trump question when an audience member asked about how the billionaire could be stopped.
"I'm not going to criticize Donald Trump. I'm not going to get into that. I say one word, and all the cameras cover it," he said. "When I'm talking about somebody else, I'm not talking about me. And you don't know enough about me, so why am I spending my time talking about somebody else?"
So, don't look for Kasich to try to grab sensational headlines. He has a different vision for his race, a longer view. "I have enough time. I'm in New Hampshire at town hall meetings. That's where the elections are won. They're not won just in some seven-minute business. It's a long haul in this business. You go in the middle of the room. They line up, 100 - 200 people, and they poke you and they smell you an they ask you and they push you and then decide whether they like you or not. And that's the process."
The locale for his campaign event was the Shady Canyon Golf Course - a club with a landscape evocative of a Monet painting. One employee said it was one of House Speaker John Boehner's favorite courses, and Kasich, an avid golfer, joked to some of the small gathering that he had only come for the golf. Membership as Shady Canyon reportedly runs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That made it an ideal place for Kasich's fundraising push, which, according to a packet handed out at the event, will reward its top fundraisers for hitting goals at $27,000, $108,000 and $270,000 thresholds, with perks like briefings from top campaign officials and special treatment at the Republican convention next year.
Kasich's speech focused mostly on the governor's background, laced with folksy one-liners ("I decided to go to a small liberal school in the Midwest. I don't know if you've ever heard of it - Ohio State.") He touted his rise in Washington and ascendancy to becoming governor of a crucial swing state.
There was also an oft-repeated story about how he invited himself to meet President Richard Nixon in the White House when he was still a teen. Nixon promised five minutes. Kasich felt that since he brought new clothes for the occasion, he was entitled to more. He got twenty.
Kasich, as he did at Wednesday's debate, reiterated that he would vigorously enforce the Iranian nuclear deal, rather than tear it up on his first day in office, as several candidates have promised.
"I wouldn't have ever signed this deal because I don't trust those guys," Kasich said. "But here's the situation. We have virtually the rest of the entire world, including our friends in the Arab world signing up for this agreement. I believe it's inevitable that they will break it."
"If somebody was to say, 'I should tear up this agreement 18 months before I'm even in office,' what does that mean?" Kasich said. "What do you do there? How do you make a promise 18 months out?"