Kasich Explores White House Bid
Representative John Kasich, chairman of the House Budget Committee and a champion of tax cuts, laid the groundwork Monday for a long shot presidential campaign based on returning "power to the people."
Kasich, a Republican from the Columbus suburb of Westerville, Ohio, is filing papers with the Federal Election Commission to formally establish a presidential exploratory committee.
"We have to begin to run America from the bottom up," Kasich told a crowd of 1,300 cheering supporters in his adopted hometown.
They came together at a $100-a-person breakfast this morning, which followed a $1,000-a-person dinner Sunday night that attracted 300 people.
At midmorning Monday, hundreds of supporters and a high school band gave Kasich a rousing sendoff at a Port Columbus International Airport hangar decked with a 50-by-30-foot flag.
They waved and cheered as he and his wife, Karen, boarded a small jet headed for New Hampshire and on Thursday to Iowa - the states that can make or break a low-budget campaign like Kasich's.
Although Kasich says he won't be able to match other candidates' fund-raising skills, he says he should be able to run a credible campaign for $18.5 million rather than the $20 million believed to be a minimum budget for a national bid in next year's primaries.
Kasich, a nine-term House member who has been pushing for a 10 percent, across-the-board tax cut, has been to Iowa and New Hampshire several times during the past two years.
"We are hungry for the renewal of the American spirit," he Kasich, promising to take inspiration from the heroics of everyday people as well as conservative icons like Ronald Reagan and the Rev. Billy Graham.
At the age of 46, Kasich joins a growing list of Republicans with exploratory committees, among them, Senator John McCain of Arizona and former Vice President Dan Quayle.
Although his name may not be as recognizable as some of the early Republican frontrunners for the 2000 presidential nomination, like Texas Governor George W. Bush and former Cabinet secretary Elizabeth Dole, Kasich says voters' lack of familiarity with him could work to his advantage.
"I'm just a little different and a little fresher than a lot of the people who are in politics now," Kasich said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.
"Early polls and name ID don't mean anything," he added. "Politics is ever-changing. I don't worry about the polls."
Kasich described himself as a different kind of Republican candidate, one who is not capitalizing on famous relatives or personal wealth.
"I'm a mailman's son from a blue-collar community near Pittsburgh," Kasich said. "I got into politics because I wanted to change the world."