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These ads are hammering John Kasich. Are they fair?

Chrissie Thompson
cthompson@usatoday.com

GREENLAND, N.H. — John Kasich's late rise in New Hampshire attracted attacks from all sides, flooding the airwaves, filling voters' mailboxes.

At a campaign event this week at the Portsmouth Country Club, a man brought Kasich a stack of post cards hitting him for some of his moderate stances.

"Look at all these pictures of me. … I’m in every God darn one!” Kasich said. Then, mocking one ad: "I sided with (President Barack) Obama -- arrr!" he said, giving what sounded like his best pirate impression.

Politicians can respond to negative advertising in two ways: hitting back or touting their attempt to "take the high road." Kasich initially chose the latter, even lambasting his own political action committee for releasing a negative ad hitting Marco Rubio. The PAC quickly pulled the ad, but later released a commercial calling out Kasich's GOP rivals for mudslinging.

So the PAC went negative, in a positive way.

The attacks on Kasich have persisted, even though there’s a new candidate on the move in New Hampshire. Rubio has risen this week after his better-than-expected performance in the Iowa caucuses Monday. Polls now show him solidly in second place behind Donald Trump, with Kasich a few more points back, battling Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush.

For John Kasich, two roads diverge in New Hampshire primary

New Hampshire voters often don't decide on a candidate until a day or two before the primary. So Kasich may attract similar punches in Saturday night's debate from candidates worried about his potential for a strong performance in Tuesday's primary.

As Kasich’s oft-namedropped friend, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told him once: “Love the beatings,” Kasich says, in his best Austrian accent.

We in Ohio know what attack ads look like in the general election. Here’s what Kasich is facing on the airwaves of the nation’s first primary state.

'Obama Republican’

“John Kasich: Not a conservative. Not even a moderate. An Obama Republican,” the commercial says, showing Kasich with President Barack Obama.

It says he supports Common Core, raised taxes and cheerleaded “Obama’s Medicaid expansion.”

The group behind the ad, the American Future Fund, is technically a nonprofit, so it doesn’t have to disclose its donors. It’s not completely clear which candidate the group’s operatives hope to see defeat Kasich.

Is it fair and accurate?

It’s true Kasich has supported increasing sales taxes or expanding them to services to help pay for income tax cuts. The concept, known as “tax reform,” has support among many Republicans. In fact, the strongest GOP precedent belongs to none other than former President Ronald Reagan. In 1986, Reagan lowered income tax rates, while increasing taxes on capital gains.

But Republicans in the Legislature have rejected many of Kasich’s proposals, calling them “tax shifts.” Much of Ohio’s income tax cuts have come from the decision not to spend all of the state’s projected increases in tax revenue, which come largely from an improving economy.

Kasich is indeed an outspoken supporter of Medicaid expansion under Obama’s health care law. But he wants to repeal many of the mandates under Obamacare and give state governments more control of their taxpayers’ share of Medicaid and Medicare money.

“I’m against Obamacare,” Kasich said this week. Justifying his decision to expand Medicaid, he said: “I don’t think the mentally ill should be living in jails or sleeping under bridges.”

And he does support Ohio’s decision to support Common Core educational standards, but he says he doesn’t care whether other states sign on. Individual states should make their own decisions about higher standards for students, he says.

How Republican is Gov. Kasich's budget?

'Wrong’

“John Kasich: Wrong on New Hampshire issues,” says an ad from the PAC supporting Jeb Bush.

Besides the usual attacks on Medicaid and spending, the ad says Kasich voted for cuts in defense spending, along with a bill that closed a New Hampshire Air Force base.

Is it fair and accurate?

Technically, that’s true. Kasich has faced this sort of accusation in other states too. In Congress, he supported the Base Realignment and Closure process that was intended to close obsolete and unneeded military outposts.

“What we can’t do is build weapon systems that we don’t need or keep installations open that we don’t need any more, which drains our resources. If you do, you know what that’s called? Pork barrel politics,” he told a voter who mentioned the ad at a town-hall meeting this week in Alton.

“Anybody who would run an ad like that and criticize me clearly doesn’t understand how national security works, or they’re desperate to win.”

Trump attacks Kasich – in a Christie ad

A black-and-white crackling TV shows Kasich’s interaction with Donald Trump from a debate in the fall, in which Trump said Kasich was a “managing general partner at Lehman Brothers when it went down the tubes.”

“Kasich made millions while taxpayers were forced to bail out Wall Street,” a voice says. “Kasich: Washington insider, Wall Street banker.”

Of course, Trump doesn’t have a super PAC. This ad comes from the PAC supporting Christie.

Is it fair and accurate?

After he served in Congress, Kasich did work for Lehman Brothers. But he wasn’t a big player at the investment bank, whose liquidation in September 2008 helped kick off the most dramatic portion of the Great Recession. He and longtime aide Jai Chabria worked in an office in Columbus, and Kasich reportedly commuted often to New York.

Kasich didn’t bankrupt Lehman Brothers. Not even close.

He did make a lot of money – “millions” if you count all his income sources – but his pay wouldn’t have placed him in Lehman Brothers’ upper echelons.

Kasich released his 2008 tax returns when he first ran for governor, showing he earned $183,000 in salary and a $432,200 bonus from Lehman that year. With other income, including his payment for working for Fox News, he earned a total of $1.38 million that year.

Kasich's team fires back

Kasich's PAC is running a positive ad that goes negative.

The commercial shows four men and a boy covered in mud -- clearly Christie, Trump, Bush, Cruz and Rubio. The boy, aimed at Rubio, keeps drinking from a bottle of water, mocking Rubio's awkward move to grab a bottle of water in the middle of his 2013 rebuttal to Obama's State of the Union address. One of the men, apparently the Cruz character, throws mud at the Christie figure with a flick of his wrist.

"Doing whatever it takes to win is not presidential," a voice ominously says, criticizing the candidates and their allies for attack ads. Then the music changes, and the commercial praises Kasich for being a tax cutter and a job creator.

"That's John Kasich," the voice says. "That's conservative, and that's presidential."

Is it fair and accurate?

It’s not only other candidates who have been on the attack. Kasich's PAC has run plenty of positive ads, but it has gone negative several times before -- accusing Bush of mudslinging as his poll numbers stayed low, calling out Christie for New Jersey’s credit downgrades, launching the short-lived ad against Rubio. Kasich’s campaign ran a web campaign mocking Bush for his polling slide and saying he signed onto silly rules as Florida governor.

It’s true that Kasich got his allies to take down one ad and is speaking out against negative advertising. He gets applause and laughter at each of his campaign events for a line like this, which he delivered Friday night at his 100th town-hall meeting in New Hampshire.

“ ‘Kasich's running this positive campaign. Can it work?’ “ he said, telling the Bedford audience he was quoting national newspaper stories. “It'd be really cool if it worked. And if it doesn't, I'm blaming all of you.”

But voters may view this latest commercial, which criticizes his opponents, as hypocritical.

The Associated Press contributed. 

Watch the Republican presidential debate 

When does it start?

Coverage starts at 8 p.m. ET, with candidates taking the stage at 8:15. It will air live on ABC and will be livestreamed on ABCNews.com.

Where will the debate be held?

The debate, sponsored by ABC News, WMUR and the Independent Journal Review, takes place at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.

Who will be in the debate?

The stage will be a little less crowded this time around, with seven candidates: John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Chris Christie.