How John Kasich could win

John Kasich is like your 8-year-old son.

You're at a school event, and someone comes up to you to say what a nice young man your son is.

"You're like, 'My kid?' 'Yeah, he can behave really well. He has really nice manners,' " said Renee Plummer, a real estate developer and political activist in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. "And then you start to look at your child – or your governor – and say, 'You know what, he can be president, and look at all the people who are behind him.' "

As I've covered our governor's mounting presidential campaign, feedback from Cincinnati has increasingly sounded like this: Kasich, as president? Leader of the free world? Are you kidding? He hasn't a chance. Whatis he thinking?

If that's you, think again.

No one is crowning Kasich the frontrunner. Everyone acknowledges his lack of name recognition and fundraising will hurt his chances after he officially launches his campaign on July 21. But Kasich's experience, candor and moderate views are winning him fans in New Hampshire and Iowa and among politicos elsewhere.

He could outshine presumed frontrunner Jeb Bush, they say. His experience level would challenge Marco Rubio. And if Republican voters can coalesce around a moderate like Kasich, he might even pose a threat to Hillary Clinton.

I've written a lot about the hurdles Kasich faces. This story is about how he could win.

Maybe we don't realize what a big deal it is to be the governor of Ohio.

Every time Kasich addresses a group of Republicans, he talks about his landslide re-election in 2014. Almost without fail, several people say: "Wow." Once, in Georgia, someone gasped.

Practically every time I talk with an out-of-state voter, he or she mentions Kasich's strength in Ohio and Ohio's importance to the election. One thing is clear: Many Republican primary voters feel a responsibility to raise up a candidate who can win back the White House. And no Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio.

For Kasich, the journey to presidential candidacy is rooted in his re-election. Touting income-tax cuts and economic growth, he rolled over scandal-ruined Democrat Ed FitzGerald, 64 percent to 33 percent. Kasich won 86 of Ohio's 88 counties – even the one containing Democratic stronghold Cleveland. (And lest we credit FitzGerald with the Kasich triumph, remember: Kasich's job approval rating is at 60 percent.)

AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" played as the governor took the stage Nov. 4 at the Republican Party's election celebration, fists pumping over his head in time to the music.

"That's called the new Republican Party!" he hollered. "This is a movement to restore hope in our state. Maybe it could even become contagious, with hope being restored all over the United States of America."

From there, he moved slowly, but he never looked back.

A month later, he launched a national tour to promote a federal balanced-budget amendment. Then he began campaigning in early-primary states.

At each stop, he was positively giddy.

"It was sort of amazing, right?" he said after his first trip to New Hampshire, in March. "You come to something like this and see how people react, and it's pretty positive. It really does have an impact on the way you think."

He had the experience. He had Ohio. All around him, it seemed, people were clamoring for him to run. And he still had his weekends free.

But to run for president requires more than positive vibes. About a month ago, Kasich, 63, seemed to flip a switch, from entitled elder statesman to earnest campaigner. He started traveling most weekdays. He's up to five trips to New Hampshire now and four to South Carolina. After months of ignoring Iowa's conservative caucus voters, he even visited the Hawkeye State last month, telling the Des Moines Register his trip was a sign of respect.

He's still giddy. Near the end of his day in Iowa, he opened an informal press conference by pretending to be a basketball player doing a post-game interview.

Still, he has a focus and urgency that was lacking in his gubernatorial re-election waltz or his early days on the presidential campaign trail. On a late-May trip to South Carolina and Georgia, Kasich couldn't remember the name of his team's nonprofit fundraising website, NewDayForAmerica.com, but at least he remembered to tell people about it.

These days, Kasich looks like he's truly campaigning – for the first time since 2010, when he eked out a two-point victory over incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland to become governor.

That election marked Kasich's third-straight defeat of a Democratic incumbent. He knocked the first one off in 1978, becoming a state senator at age 26. He kicked off his nine terms in Congress in 1982, surviving rampant anti-Ronald Reagan sentiment to become the only Republican in the country to defeat an incumbent congressman.

Kasich's only failed election? The last time he ran for president, in 1999. Kasich had helped lead a charge in the 1990s to balance the federal budget and sought to convert a growing national profile into a White House bid. (Even now, most conservatives who recognize Kasich on the campaign trail cite his balanced-budget experience in Congress.)

Enthusiasm and financial support for George W. Bush forced Kasich to end his 1999 presidential campaign in July. The loss kicked off a decade outside of public office: working for Lehman Brothers out of a two-person office in Ohio, hosting a show on Fox News, writing books.

Kasich says he didn't prepare for his first presidential bid. This time, he told me, "I can see sort of the pathway as to how I can be president. I can see what the trek is like to the top of Mount Everest. The question is, do I have the guides? Do I have the equipment? Do I have the money?"

Something else has changed for Kasich: He's intentionally less of a jerk.

Take this exchange, from a campaign stop in Georgia. I asked him about an executive order he'd issued, taking away union rights for some home-health-care workers. He cut me off mid-question, answered brusquely and walked away as I asked a follow-up question. An aide said he was out of time and wouldn't take questions again until that evening.

I hung close as the governor took photos with Georgians, hoping for another opportunity, but not expecting one. Out of nowhere, he walked over to me and apologized. I'm sorry, he said, I cut you off. What was your question? He even took another follow-up.

That may not sound unusual to the non-journalist, or even to someone who doesn't know the governor. But it was a deferential – even courteous – side of John Kasich I hadn't seen.

Neither have I seen him exit a press conference, then walk back in to thank reporters for coming, as he did on his first trip to Iowa. He's almost assumed an "aw shucks" demeanor when he thanks voters on the campaign trail, making jokes about how few people came to see him when he ran in 1999. "Aw shucks" is definitely not natural Kasich.

"Most people don't know me very well. People make judgments," he explained.

"I'm a McKees Rocks boy," he said, referencing his Western Pennsylvania childhood hometown. "We're rough and tumble there. We're direct and blunt and all that kind of stuff."

To be fair, he is still quite sure of his own rightness.

As he told me last month, "The doubters are not experts."

"Are the believers experts?" I asked him.

"Uh, yeah, pretty much," he said.

And he is still unapologetic. Nearly every campaign stop, he answers a question the way the conservative questioner doesn't like. But most of the time, people seem OK with it. It's refreshing, they say.

"There's a Midwestern bluntness, but without a Northeastern edge," said John Watson, who served as chief of staff for former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and who has introduced Kasich to Atlanta donors. "There's a thirst for truth-telling. He doesn't pull any punches. He just kind of says it like it is, and I think that's appealing."

Republican political junkies are often familiar with Kasich's support for Common Core educational standards or for Medicaid expansion under President Barack Obama's health care law.

But how about this?

In Iowa, a woman asked about officials' misbehavior, calling out Lois Lerner, formerly of the IRS, and Clinton.

"I'm more worried about what we're going to do to fix America than I am about Hillary's (email) server," Kasich said, almost chastising the woman.

Yet she told the Columbus Dispatch after the event that she was "fine" with his answer, and Kasich "appears to be presidential."

So far, there's less of the signature Kasich shrug after he makes a statement like that. Wrapped into the shrug: You disagree with me? No matter. I'm right. The shrug-less Kasich seems less arrogant and more earnest, more willing to explain. More confident you'll side with him. And vote for him.

"You have to look at the totality of the candidate on all the issues and whether they hold to their belief," said Robb Thomson, a Republican activist whose father served as governor of New Hampshire. "Are they trying to pander to me? I don't think Governor Kasich does a lot of pandering."

Teresa Fedor wasn't prepared for the result of her first meeting with Kasich.

The Democratic state representative walked out during Kasich's first State of the State address, joining a protest in the Statehouse rotunda over his plan to limit the collective bargaining rights of public employees. During hearings for Senate Bill 5, state troopers closed the Statehouse to the public, citing overcrowding concerns. Fedor defied them, dramatically opening the doors to crowds outside and then joining a lawsuit over Statehouse access.

The bill passed, but Ohio voters overwhelmingly voted to repeal the legislation a year after electing Kasich governor.

A few months later, Fedor asked to meet with Kasich. His advisers told him to decline. He didn't take their advice.

It turned out Fedor had been trying to pass comprehensive anti-human trafficking legislation.

Early into her pitch, Kasich signed on. "Why don't we pass your bill?" the governor said.

She stared at him. "Do you really mean it?" Fedor said.

Kasich has since signed two massive bills and an executive order, stiffening penalties for traffickers and johns and providing services to victims. Fedor still opposed Kasich's re-election bid in 2014, but newspapers have run photos of the two hugging at bill signings. "No one was more surprised than me" at the partnership, Fedor says.

Kasich credits his faith in God with his interest in stopping human trafficking. It's also one of the motivators for his signature gubernatorial accomplishment: expanding Medicaid under Obamacare, a move which angered conservatives and required heavy Democratic support.

"For me, faith is the do's, not the don'ts," Kasich said in May to a group of about 250 Georgians, who mostly responded in thoughtful silence. It seemed this wasn't the kind of faith reference they were used to.

Kasich says his faith has grown consistently since the late 1980s, after his parents died in a car crash with a drunk driver.

"I'm just trying to figure out how my life can have meaning in the world," Kasich told me. "My life is not going to be, 'I'm waiting for a voice' or 'I'm waiting for an email.' I don't know if God really emails or not."

No matter, because Kasich now plans to run, taking on what's likely to be around 15 GOP primary opponents.

The race lacks a clear leader, but Kasich routinely polls at 1 to 3 percent nationally – and in Iowa, and in New Hampshire. While he might not be able to abandon his infamous grimaces or slouching posture for two hours, aides believe his candor will stand out on a debate stage. But he's polling so poorly that he'd currently miss the cut for the first debate, Aug. 6 in Cleveland.

So Kasich goes back to his roots: what he did whilerunning for state Senate or Congress. Calling supporters. Visiting homes. And that means New Hampshire, whose population of 1.3 million is about double that of a congressional district.

"You don't have to meet the whole country," Kasich told me. "You build your own army. ... I've never met anybody who I didn't think I could get to vote for me if I could talk to them."

For what it's worth, Kasich also has a strategy for taking on Clinton, whom he's leading in Ohio polls.

"I don't believe you beat Hillary by talking about Benghazi or emails or anything like that," said Kasich, who has repeatedly declined to criticize the former First Lady and U.S. Secretary of State. "The person that's going to get elected is someone that can give people confidence that they can renew the American spirit."

Is Kasich – the incumbent-defeating state senator and congressman and governor – out of his league?

Not a bit, said Dick Wright, an elderly Navy veteran from Charleston, S.C. "I think he's electable," he said.

After all, said Wright's stepson, Russell Guerard: "Somebody's got to be president."