Kasich threatens to leave GOP

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Kasich is really pissing me off. If he wanted to stop Trump, he should have dropped out after the New Hampshire primary and endorsed either Rubio or Cruz. Instead, his ego wouldn't let him quit, and he played a major role in Trump winning the GOP nomination.

Maybe Rubio shouldnt have done so badly in NH.


Kasich came in 2nd in NH not Rubio , due to Rubio self destructing at the NH debate

By the way, the idea that Kasich played a role in helping Trump is fallacious. If you're a pro-choice/pro-medicare republican Trump is the most moderate of the 3 (Trump,Rubio, Cruz), that's why Trump consistently won moderates in every single primary, with Kasich collecting the second highest number of Moderates.

If anyone played that role, it was Rubio, who took conservatives away from Cruz, he was the one who should've dropped out and endorsed Cruz after NH.

You also need to look at it from the perspective of Kasich/Jeb/Christie, they're experienced governors and relatively more moderate, forcing them to pick a choice between two hard-right inexperienced congressmen is absurd at face value, because for them, in some policy respects, Trump would actually be more preferable.

Actually I have to disagree with this, so much of the presidential primary is about momentum. Had Kasich dropped out after Nevada (as he should have) Rubio wins VA and MN on super tuesday. This entirely changes the narrative, Rubio was down double digits in polling on VA and his victory would have been the talk of the race, and would have shown trump as far more vulnerable. Had Carson also dropped out after NV as he should have, Cruz most likely wins Arkansas.  

If actors in this primary acted rationally Trumps momentum would have been severely blunted on Super Tuesday, and would have possibly changed the entire campaign narrative to show a more beatable trump. Kasich staying in the race gave trump several states.

Without Kasich, it would've been a very tight race in VA, but it's hard to call him a spoiler when rubio came in fourth place in a number of states behind Kasich.  Do you not understand the irony in hating Kasich for being moderate when his voters are almost exclusively moderates? If you do the math and give a two-thirds margin to him and one-third to Trump, it evens out.

Anyway, the only thing that would've done is improved Rubio's margins a bit to getting more delegates which would have additionally come at the expense of Cruz. It would've just tanked Cruz's momentum after Rubio's defeat in FL to offset any impact Kasich had on Cruz's chances on the Trump v. Cruz finale.

I don't hate him for being a moderate, I hate him for being a phony.

By the way, this is a particularly rich comment considering Kasich was the first republican to actually pay for ads against Trump back in 2015. Rubio didn't spend a dime or even attack Trump once until 2 weeks before he dropped out in a last minute spree of desperation.

If you're an ideological conservative, and you busily play footsie with someone you believe to not be so conservative and are willing to gamble the likelihood of that person potentially taking over the party (to boost your own odds in your own mind), you're not that ideological to begin with. Both Cruz & Rubio played this game. Go watch the CNBC debate in Oct. 2015, the moderators asked both to attack Trump point blank and both deflected and bashed the media and the moderators instead.

Kasich at least attacked Trump point-blank whenever he was asked to do so.

As for phoniness.....

attacking trump makes him authentic?

Kasich is absolutely a fake. He runs as whatever benefits him. Kasich has been never trump simply because it benefits John Kasich. He has a history of taking self serving stances that are opposite to other stances hes taken in the past

If you're a conservative and you believe someone is a threat to conservatism, you're supposed to risk helping him by not attacking him to improve your own odds? The only outcome of that strategy is an increase in the likelihood of conservatism failing.

That's some bitter irony, Kasich did more to defend his ideology of moderate conservatism than Rubio/Cruz did for their respective ideologies, yet you're slamming Kasich for not being ideological enough....

I'm slamming Kasich for not being anything.

In congress Kasich ran as a budget hawk who supported some gun control.

in 2010 Kasich ran as a gun toting Tea Party conservative who was going to get things done

In 2011 Kasich supported a ban on public employee unions
In 2011 Kasich supported an amendment stopping Obamacare in Ohio
in 2014 Kasich decided he was going to run for president, and stayed on a conservative message, but distanced himself from the tea party
In 2015 Kasich realized he needed to fill a moderate side of the republican party to be effective in the presidential primaries, due to better conservatives with actual track records of getting things done
In 2015 Kasich killed a RTW ballot initiative in Ohio because he felt it would hurt this new switch in ideology
in 2014-15 Kasich accepted medicaid expansion (despite railing against it for years when running) and did it against the will of the legislature through some shady things.

On top of all this he went from a bombastic jerkish cross between Christie and Scott Walker to a soft touch compassionate conservative.

What does Kasich believe? nothing. He's shifted his positions dozens of times in efforts to get himself elected. Kasich never thought trump was a "threat to his ideology" because Kasich has no ideology. Kasich thought Trump was going to LOSE so he fought trump so he could be the heir apparent in the primaries in 2020, as he was "against trump the whole time"

You see Kasich as this moderate conservative warrior, when he isn't. hes a self serving jerk, and thats how people in OHIO see him  

The people of Ohio love him: