John Kasich, governor and presidential candidate, coming to DePauw for Jan. 30 Ubben Lecture

Monday, January 14, 2019 ~ Updated 2:23 PM
John Kasich
Photo by Gage Skidmore

John R. Kasich Jr., the 69th Governor of Ohio and a candidate for President of the United States in 2016, will come to DePauw University on Wednesday, Jan. 30, as a guest of the Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture Series.

A Republican who is known for working with Democrats as governor and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Kasich will discuss “Navigating These Partisan Times and Finding Your Personal Political Voice” at 7:30 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium, located within DePauw’s Green Center for the Performing Arts (605 S. College Avenue).

Like all Ubben Lectures, the event is presented free of admission charge and is open to all. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis, and no tickets will be distributed.

The Ubben Series has previously hosted 11 other presidential candidates: Bill Bradley, Jesse Jackson, Paul Tsongas, Ross Perot, Richard Lugar, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Ralph Nader, Dan Quayle ‘69, Ron Paul and Bill Clinton.

Kasich, whose second term ends today (he is ineligible for re-election as governor due to term limits), will come to DePauw just 16 days after leaving office. Speculation is already focusing on the possibility of him pursuing another bid for the presidency in 2020.

Born and raised in the Pittsburgh suburb of McKees Rocks, Pa., Kasich’s father was a mail carrier and his mother worked in the post office. Both were the children of immigrants.

Kasich left Pennsylvania to study political science at Ohio State University. As a freshman, he wrote a letter to President Richard Nixon describing his concerns about the nation and wound up meeting with the president in the Oval Office for 20 minutes in December 1970.

After graduation from college, Kasich worked as a researcher for the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, then served as an administrative assistant to state Senator Buz Lukens. In 1978, at age 26, Kasich became the second-youngest person ever elected to the Ohio Senate. Four years later, he was elected to Congress.

Kasich served nine terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Ohio’s 12th congressional district from 1983 to 2001. His tenure in the House included 18 years on the House Armed Services Committee and six years as chairman of the House Budget Committee. He was a key figure in the passage of both 1996 welfare reform legislation and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

Kasich made an unsuccessful run for the White House in 2000 and left Congress, going on to host a cable news program and working as an investment banker. In 2010 he was elected governor of Ohio and was re-elected four years later, defeating Democrat Ed FitzGerald by 30 percentage points.

In his first inaugural address Gov. Kasich called on Ohioans to come together to make the Buckeye State stronger and more prosperous for all. He vowed to create a jobs-friendly climate, worked to address an $8 billion budget shortfall without a tax increase, reduced taxes by $5 billion, cut wasteful spending and eliminated bureaucracy. Ohio added 557,600 jobs on his watch.

Kasich also oversaw implementation of what his state calls “the strongest, most comprehensive anti-drug effort in the nation.” His move to modernize Ohio’s infrastructure has led to a record number of new transportation projects, all without a single tax increase. The governor has also been a leading voice in promoting bipartisan solutions to health care reform, immigration and international trade.

After becoming the last Republican opponent of Donald Trump to leave the 2016 presidential contest, Kasich refused to throw his support behind Trump and did not attend the Republican National Convention of 2016, which was held in his state.

Now, as he leaves office in Ohio, he says, “I’m not going away. I’ll be around.”

In recent weeks, Kasich has said he is “very seriously” considering mounting a challenge to President Trump. On the Nov. 25 edition of ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” Kasich said as he considers his future, “What I ask is what do I owe to my country? What can I do to help?”

As recently as Nov. 30, Kasich offered, “I think of it this way, the way my buddy Arnold Schwarzenegger told me: ‘You have a fire extinguisher in your hand, and if a fire breaks out, you’re ready to put it out.’ But I don’t know what I’m going to do. I had an absolutely wonderful time running for president the last time. It’s hard work, it’s extremely difficult, but boy, I’ll tell ya what, it can be extremely rewarding if you allow yourself to get caught up in the fervor and passions of the people of this country. It’s fantastic. So we’ll see.”

Matthew Walker of The Week put the odds of a 2020 run by Kasich at 80 percent. He wrote that Kasich “is one of the few GOP governors who happily embraced Barack Obama’s expansion of Medicaid. His 2016 campaign focused on broad social and cultural themes like the decline of the family and the drug epidemic. Kasich has perhaps the best chance of anyone running against Trump in official primary contests, one of which he actually managed to win in 2016.”

As Crain’s Cleveland Business reported, Kasich said in early December, “What I’m most proud of in these eight years is I don’t think anybody got left behind; that’s the most important thing,” he said. “And if you didn’t get everything that you wanted and you’re at the bottom, at least I think you had the sense there were people who cared about you.”

The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jessie Balmert conjectured, “Kasich could team up with a center-left candidate, such as Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, for an independent bid. (Although, Kasich has quipped that Hickenlooper’s name is too long for a bumper sticker.) In this scenario, Kasich would count on voters being so disenfranchised with the Republican and Democratic parties that they would consider another option. There’s some evidence that young voters, in particular, don’t feel represented by either party.”

Last week as the shutdown of the federal government continued, Kasich tweeted, “The President and the Democrats need to learn how to compromise and put the American people first. It starts with the President putting the country ahead of his politics and being more flexible with his goals. Border security is important, but both sides should be willing to negotiate on how we do it.”

In an op-ed column published in this morning’s USA Today, Kasich states, “It’s a new year and almost two decades into a new century, yet so much about American life and our political leadership -- notably in my own Republican Party — seems stuck in the 1950s. While nearly every aspect of the world around us has been changing, sometimes with breakneck speed, and while the complexion and complexities of our demographics have shifted so dramatically, those who fancy themselves as leaders are plodding far behind the march of time. Sadly, too many Americans are content to plod along with them.”

Kasich is the author of four New York Times best-sellers: “Courage is Contagious”; “Stand for Something: The Battle for America’s Soul”; “Every Other Monday”; and most recently “Two Paths: America Divided or United,” which reflects on his 2016 presidential campaign and his hopes for America’s future.

The speech by Gov. Kasich, which will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience, will mark the second Ubben Lecture of the 2018-19 academic year. Juan Manuel Santos, the former president of Colombia and the 2016 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, visited DePauw Oct. 22.

Established in 1986 through the generous support of 1958 DePauw graduates Timothy H. and Sharon Williams Ubben, the Ubben Lecture Series was designed to “bring the world to Greencastle. The series has presented 111 events over the past 32 years.

Previous Ubben Lecturers have included Malala Yousafzai (seen with Tim Ubben in photo below), Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Spike Lee, Jimmy Kimmel, Vernon Jordan ‘57, Mikhail Gorbachev, David Cameron, Jane Goodall, Tony Blair, David Brooks, Bill Rasmussen ‘54, Leslie Odom Jr., Doris Kearns Goodwin, Mike Krzyzewski, Julian Bond, Jenna Fischer, General Colin Powell, Andrew Luck, Michio Kaku, Piper Kerman, Barbara Bush, Jimmy Wales, Jesse Jackson, Todd Rundgren, Martin Luther King III, Willy Brandt, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, General Wesley Clark,Greg Mortenson, Arne Duncan, Ken Burns, Ron Paul, Karl Rove, Howard Dean, Eric Schlosser, Dan Quayle ‘69, Jane Pauley, Harry Belafonte, Sam Donaldson, David McCullough, John Major, Lee Hamilton ‘52, Ralph Nader, Bret Baier ‘92, Mitch Albom, Brian Mulroney, Yeonmi Park, Candy Crowley, Peyton Manning, Liz Murray, Jason Reitman, William J. Bennett, Richard Lamm, Mary Frances Berry, Jim Lovell, Gwen Ifill, ice cream entrepreneurs Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield, Douglas Hallward-Driemeier ‘89, Stephen Levitt, Allan Bloom, Andrew Young, Paul Volcker, David Hanson and his robot creation Sophia, Naomi Wolf, Ross Perot, Sister Helen Prejean, Bill Bradley, Ferid Murad ‘58, Paul Tsongas, Nicholas Carr, Rebecca Skloot, Seymour Hersh, Zbigniew Brzezinski, George Will, Carl Rowan and many others.

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