Ohio Gov. John Kasich ‘very seriously’ considering White House run in 2020

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Former Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich speaks during a campaign rally at the Billy Goat Tavern on Monday, Nov. 9, 2015. | Sun-Times file photo

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Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a fierce critic of President Donald Trump who challenged him for the Republican nomination in 2016, is thinking “very seriously” about another run for president in 2020.

Kasich, a Republican who is finishing his final term as governor in January, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” that he is having “earnest conversations that go on virtually every day” with his friends and family about running in 2020.

“We need different leadership, there isn’t a question about it,” Kasich said. “I’m not only just worried about the tone and the name-calling and the division in our country and the partisanship, but I also worry about the policies.”

Among his policy concerns, Kasich cited the rising national debt, the inability to find a solution to the immigration problem, isolationism and the “rotten deal with the Saudis to look the other way” after the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

“I’m worried about our country in the longterm. So, the question for me is, ‘What do I do about this?'” he said. He added that he has to consider whether to run only if he thinks he can actually win, or if it would be worth it to run to “send a message that can disrupt the political system in this country.”

Kasich, 66, said he would consider a symbolic run when asked by host George Stephanopolous if he realistically thought he could wrest the nomination from Trump, who has solid support among Republican voters.

“All options are on the table for me,” Kasich said, indicating he could consider a third party or bipartisan run. He had previously floated the idea of running with Colorado’s Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who just won re-election in the increasingly Republican state, also said on “This Week” that he is “seriously thinking about” a run for president in 2020.

“You know, I didn’t have this dream of being president of the United States all my life,” said Brown, 66. His lifelong dream, he said, had been to play centerfield for the Cleveland Indians, but admitted that “door obviously has closed.”

Brown said he hadn’t gone to Iowa or New Hampshire – the usual stops for presidential hopefuls – or “done any of those things to prepare, which is fine because the Iowa caucuses are 13 months away.”

He said other Democrats should take up his working-class focus because that is how he believes Trump can be defeated in the industrial Midwest.

“I hope that candidates running in the Democratic primary talk about the dignity of work, talk about respecting work, talk about when you work hard and play by the rules you ought to be able to get ahead,” he said.

Brown decried stagnant wages for workers amid record profits and sky-rocketing executive compensation.

“We’ve seen lots of heartache in my state and throughout the industrial Midwest,” while the White House “looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives,” Brown said.

Read more at USA Today.

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