John Kasich, whose jokes become headlines, says U.S. needs 'a sense of humor'
BOW, N.H. – “I’m so tired of all of this nonsense.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich was taking questions Tuesday at a town-hall meeting here for his presidential campaign. He had been using marriage as an example of how he’d compromise, despite closely held principles.
“When you are with your wife,” he said to a man, “do you ever have to give up anything that you really don’t want to give up? You do?”
Kasich then turned to the man’s wife.
“You probably never do, do you?” he joked. The audience howled.
Then, Kasich remembered. His recent jokes have created controversies. And he doesn’t seem to think that’s fair.
“Because I said that, someone will attack me in the press. Let’s also get a sense of humor back in America, OK?” he said, to applause.
A Kasich joke in Virginia generated perhaps his biggest headline last week. At an event at the University of Richmond, he cracked about a college student waving her hand to ask a question, saying he didn’t have Taylor Swift tickets. The young woman found the remark offensive, and a resulting op-ed for the college newspaper went viral.
Then, at an event Friday in New Hampshire, Kasich was talking about Social Security. He suggested cutting back on the benefit that will go to people who have yet to retire, in order to ensure Social Security for younger generations.
Then, he asked an audience member if she would have a problem with that. Yes, she said, she would. “Well, you’d get over that, and you’re going to have to get over that,” Kasich chuckled, according to reports. But liberal groups circulated the remark, crying foul.
Kasich’s off-the-cuff style has gotten him into the occasional hot spot for years. But in his quest for the presidency, his propensity for making jokes that turn into headlines has raised questions about his suitability for the nation’s highest office.
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To Kasich, people need to lighten up.
“Everyone wants an authentic candidate until they have one," he said later Tuesday, during an interview with three Ohio reporters as his campaign bus motored through New Hampshire's White Mountains. "And what we do is we beat them down until they lose their authenticity. And I’m not going to let that happen to me.”
“It happens all the time,” Kasich acknowledged, calling the incidents “minor flashes.”
“I can guard all of my words, and I think that’s not me,” he said.
In some ways, Kasich said, the attention is a positive sign for his presidential campaign.
“In this process, I have multiple people trying to hurt me. I’ve got Republicans, and I’ve got Democrats,” he said. “It’s a good thing, in many ways, when people want to analyze every word and blast me.”
Kasich says he has advisers telling him to be more careful: “ ‘Stop talking to the cameras.’ I’m like, you know, I’m not going to listen to you.
“I don’t care what you think about that.”