There was a time when I thought that John Kasich must be an idiot. As it turned out, he’s probably the third smartest of the 16 original major GOP candidates and is working towards solidifying his political future.
I thought he was a campaigning idiot for putting all of his eggs in the New Hampshire basket. Then, I thought he was an egotistical idiot for staying in to win his home state when he knew he had no path to the White House. Recently, I realized that he had made the right moves if his intention was to get the VP tap from whoever the nominee ended up being. With everything finally in focus, it’s clear that he has had one intention all along: being Donald Trump’s VP pick. All of the talk that’s buzzing, including from Kasich himself, about the plan for a brokered convention is a lie. Based upon the math and the path to the convention, Kasich’s best bet for a brokered convention was to be the last “sane” candidate standing before dropping out and allowing Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to split the remaining delegates. By staying in, Kasich is attempting to ensure that Trump gets enough delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot.
It wasn’t the type of conspiracy theory that I wanted to point out alone, but surprisingly there were very few mentions. One mention did stick out from a strange source: former Clinton adviser Dick Morris.
“I suspect there may be a quiet, secret, behind-the-scenes understanding reached between Trump and Kasich, where Kasich stays in the race, siphons off enough votes, and Trump is the nominee. People were talking about Kasich being in the race to cause a brokered convention. That’s the exact opposite of the truth. If he stays in the race, he will make a brokered convention very unlikely because Trump will win those delegates.
“Where everybody gets it wrong is they don’t understand that in the Republican primaries, you have a few states that are winner-take-all, but most of the states that remain are winner-take-most, which means Trump would walk away with the vast bulk of the delegates were it a three-way race.”
It’s a very astute, albeit brief analysis of the situation. Kasich’s supporters lean approximately 60/40 in favor of Cruz if Kasich drops out. In most of the winner-takes-all states left on the schedule, that would be enough to tip the scale in favor of Cruz. New Jersey and Maryland are probably out of reach, but the remainder of the winner-takes-all states leading up to the June 7 finale would go to Cruz, setting up what could be the most epic battle in recent primary history: California. If Kasich were to drop out soon, it’s very likely that whoever wins California will have the 1,237 delegates necessary for the nomination.
On the other hand, Kasich’s lingering presence may be enough to prevent Cruz from even being viable by the time California rolls around.
Despite his massive failures with education in Ohio, John Kasich can do math. There is no brokered convention that yields his nomination. The only brokering being done is between Kasich and Donald Trump to ensure the worst ticket in the modern era: Trump/Kasich.
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