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Kasich and Paul: Wallflowers at the dance

Posted at 1:29 PM, Sep 17, 2015
and last updated 2015-09-17 13:29:59-04

David Niven teaches American politics at the University of Cincinnati. He has worked on local, state, and national campaigns and was Ohio governor Ted Strickland's speechwriter.

Like wallflowers at a school dance, for most of the Republicans running for president today the real challenge in a debate is simply being noticed.

David Niven

Neither the media nor voters have the attention span necessary to make sense of all the candidates, so our interests naturally gravitate to two or three candidates who make the strongest impression on us.

Both our region’s two candidates – John Kasich and Rand Paul –have rather distinctive qualities that could set them apart from the field. However, neither seems to quite have figured out how to speak in the language of debates. 

Indeed, Paul finished 8th and Kasich 9th in the amount of speaking time during the debate, and neither will be widely remembered or regarded as the winner.

Senator Paul was brought into the fray early when Donald Trump questioned why Paul had even been invited to the debate. Paul thought he could make headway by taking on Trump directly, calling him unqualified and “sophomoric” for making fun of people’s appearances.

Rand Paul couldn’t rise above the fray Wednesday night.

Trump – predictably – responded by making fun of Paul’s appearance. “I never attacked him on his look,” Trump said regarding Paul, “and believe me, there's plenty of subject matter right there.” Therein lies the problem with making fun of Trump on questions of manners. Trump’s manners are worse, and he will always get the last word.

Senator Paul’s best moments took place when he staked out his distinct positions on issues such as drug legalization and overuse of U.S. troops overseas. Here he could claim a rationale for his candidacy. But again Paul failed to make his positions come alive.

Paul spoke about a hypothetical “young mother” who needs cannabis for a child suffering from seizures. But hypothetical stories do not make people stop and take notice, they do not make people cry real tears. Paul needs to speak about real people, and not merely say, but show, that he cares about them.

Governor Kasich took a different approach to the Trump problem. Instead of engaging with Trump, Kasich told the moderator it was time for serious issues. Kasich said there had been entirely too much sniping between candidates and too little substance. “If I were watching this, I’d be inclined to turn it off,” Kasich said.

Sensibly offering himself as the adult in the room, Kasich had the potential to stand above the name calling and show that he had real answers. But he never took another opportunity to try to inject substance into the proceedings. Even when the moderator turned toward absurd filler questions (What would you want your Secret Service code name to be?), Governor Kasich simply went along with time-wasting rather than pointing out that there were more important issues to be addressed. (Kasich, apparently not a big nickname guy, wants his code name to be “Unit 1.”)

Kasich’s zeal to establish himself as an adult included several references to his lengthy service in elected office. He mentioned multiple times that he had served in Congress 18 years, and at one point noted that he first ran for office in 1978.

This is not 1996 and Kasich is not Bob Dole. He’s not going to get the nomination merely because he’s the most senior officeholder available. Instead, like a job candidate trimming an overly long resume to seem younger, Kasich should really hone in on his political experience from, say, more recent decades.

There’s no need for Paul and Kasich to be what they’re not. They both have something unique to offer. But they will need to be more compelling versions of what they are in order to break through in this crowded field.