Political Rally - John Kasich

I have never lived in a city where a candidate for President held a rally, so I was curious to go to one. I would have liked to go to Clinton’s, but I was busy Friday night. I had a ticket to Trump’s rally at 3pm on Sunday, and was all set to go, until I saw on the noon news that there were already thousands of people lined up in the cold and wind to see him. No tickets were required for Sanders, but his Tuesday-morning event had an even greater early turnout, and parking and traffic were a mess. So I was stuck with just seeing Kasich, the candidate least likely to be nominated.

waiting to enter the center

The rally was held in the Greece Community Center, and it was standing room only. But not because all of the seats were taken – there were no seats! I arrived at 10:20 for the 11am event, and had a prime spot on the balcony of the basketball court where it was taking place. I noticed the lack of racial diversity, although all ages were represented, and thought Greece was perhaps a poor venue again, but then again, it is prime Republican territory. I estimated there were one to two thousand people there in total (a police officer I asked estimated 3000). It didn’t appear that anyone was doing a real headcount.

The crowd was patient and respectful, and Kasich finally appeared at 11:30, promising “to bring America back together again,” and “make America safer” (I don’t think he was talking about gun control…). He spoke at great length about his background, and his audacity as a college student, securing a meeting with President Nixon. He appealed to the audience not to “close the door to immigrants,” although he proposes a path to legalization, not citizenship. He invoked religion quite a bit. He called his audience “God-fearing, common sense” people, who were “made special for a purpose… a God-given purpose.” He, himself, “got a call to run for governor – it (was) a beautiful thing.” And his policies are “what the Lord wants.” At one point he started singling out people near him, calling them “special” and unique, and broadening this to say that all people are special (is that like everyone in Lake Wobegon being above average?).

Like the other candidates, his platform contains broad measures that a President with or without a divided Congress has little chance of enacting: “common sense” regulation (he didn’t suggest which regulations he would unwind, but he did use that term, and I could just feel the target on the back of the EPA), lowering taxes on businesses to keep them in the US, making the tax code simpler, transferring power back to the states, and increasing defense spending (this got the most applause and in this era of fear, is actually quite likely).

there were seats in the overflow room, where
Kasich could be heard, but not seen.

By 12:30, well into the Q&A, my legs were killing me from standing so long, so I relinquished my spot to the young man behind me, and bolted for the parking lot. It was definitely an interesting experience, but not one that I’d be in a rush to repeat, without taking a folding chair with me…