On-the-spot report on the celebration of kasich primary election in the US election： compared with Trump, he is a little fresh.

John kasich, the candidate who won the second place in the Republican New Hampshire primary, shouted. Image source: Guardian

Republican candidate john kasich’s party primary celebration in New Hampshire. Jin Xiao Li tu

[Editor’s note]

On February 9, local time, the second battle of the 2016 US presidential election primary came to an end in New Hampshire (hereinafter referred to as NSW), and Trump, the Republican Party of the United States, won a big victory in this Republican primary. In the Republican camp, surprisingly, John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, performed well, ranking second only to Trump.

To China readers, kasich is a strange name compared with Hillary, Trump and Jeb Bush, and he is also "unknown" in American media. Who’s kasich? Why did he win the second place in the Republican primary in New Hampshire? Is his sudden emergence "a flash in the pan" or "enough stamina"?

On the same day, The Paper’s special contributor came to the scene of the NSW primary election celebration in kasich.Close contact with kasich and his supporters, trying to find the answers to these questions from the warm celebration atmosphere.

Just after the Iowa caucus, the Republican Party ushered in the second stop of the party’s primary election-New Hampshire. Although many people criticized that the proportion of white people in NSW was too large and too radical to predict the voting situation in the whole country, the results of NSW’s primary election were always extremely accurate. Since the state’s electoral reform in 1952, the final nominees of the Republican Party have won the top two in the state. Although Trump won NSW with an absolute advantage of 35% and became the biggest winner of this station, what was even more unexpected was the extraordinary performance of Ohio Governor John Kasich. He beat Cruz and Lu Biao, the other two popular candidates in the party, and won the second place with 16% support. The Paper and the US column team attended the primary celebration held by kasich on the evening of February 9th, and got close contact with kasich and his supporters.

Location of the celebration: Grappone Conference Center, a famous conference center in Concord, the capital of NSW. Jin Xiao Li tu

The celebration is located in the —Grappone Conference Center, a famous conference center in Concord, the capital of NSW. Since most polling stations closed their voting at 7: 00 pm, the celebration banquet also kicked off at 7: 00 pm. However, kasich, who was cautious, did not show up and deliver a speech until nearly 10: 00 pm, when more than 60% of the votes in the whole state were counted. The three hours in the middle are reserved for media, voters and special guests to socialize freely.

Actively prepare for the celebration to interview and shoot the major media around the world. Jin Xiao Li tu

Lock in the support of key party figures in New Hampshire

Most of the special guests are senior members of the Republican Party in New Hampshire, core members of the kasich campaign group and their families. On the way, we met Michael Coleman, the representative of the Republican Committee in Yorkshire, Maine. Coleman told us that kasich had already locked in the support of many key party figures in New Hampshire, such as John E. Sununu, a former senator from NSW. It is reported that sununu not only publicly endorsed kasich, but also served as the chairman of kasich’s campaign committee in NSW. The whole team has organized and coordinated nearly 190 public meetings in recent months. Sununu’s father, John H. John H. Sununu, is the 75th governor of NSW, and his younger brother, Chris Sununu, has also won the primary election in the new governor’s election, which shows that the entire sununu family has the right to speak in the NSW Republican Party. It is no wonder that kasich immediately expressed his special thanks to sununu at the beginning of his speech, even saying that without his unremitting support, he would not have achieved his second place today.

Former NSW Senator John E. sununu attended the event in kasich. Image source: Tampa Bay Times

In the contact with kasich’s team at the meeting, we learned that sununu was not the only party supporter of kasich in New Hampshire, and a long list of election-supporting presidium was filled with the names of recent party leaders in the state, including former federal representatives Charlie Bass and Chuck Douglas. Gordon Humphrey, a former federal senator, Nancy Merrill, a former member of the Republican National Committee, Fergus Cullen, a former Republican chairman of the state, and Tom Rath, a former state attorney general, and so on. These leaders of the Republican Party in New Hampshire not only attended the celebration party that night, but sununu and Humphrey also acted as spokespersons for kasich’s interview with the media, striving to create a good impression for kasich in the major media. In the past few weeks, from The New York Times, a world-class media, to Nashua Telegraph and Concord Monitor, local media have voiced their endorsement for kasich. Although kasich is not well-known in the whole country, he can lock in a lot of media support, and his team’s former senior Republican officials can’t be underestimated.

Kasich’s volunteers and core staff. Jin Xiao Li tu

Kasich: A Hawk in the American Budget

Among the special guests, we also had the honor to meet Ms. Shays, the wife of former Connecticut Congressman Chris Shays. She told us that kasich was well-known not only in the Republican Party in NSW, but also among his former congressional colleagues. Before becoming governor, kasich served as a senior member of the House of Representatives for 18 years, including 6 years as the chairman of the House Budget Committee, and has always maintained a good reputation in the House of Representatives. Her husband Shays worked with kasich on the Budget Committee, and was his good friend and admirer for many years.

Kasich and the advertisement for running for the House of Representatives in 1982. Image source: The Atlantic

Indeed, kasich’s moderate attitude on social issues such as same-sex marriage has made many people forget that he is a famous hawk on American financial issues.Kasich’s most outstanding achievement is to coordinate the budget plan with the White House, which helped the United States achieve a rare fiscal surplus in 1997 (the US budget deficit in 2016 was about $216 billion). Ms. Shays pointed out: "As the then chairman of the Budget Committee, the remarkable thing about kasich’s budget balance was that he was facing a Democratic president, Bill Clinton."The reduction of financial expenditure is often the best test of a politician’s cross-party communication ability. Although both parties are aware of the crisis of the huge deficit, whenever the Republican Party proposes to reduce its investment in social welfare, the Democratic Party says that it will cut its military expenditure in the same proportion. In the end, the two parties often break up in discord and achieve nothing. Ms Shays believes that kasich’s achievements in controlling the budget prove that he is not a politician who only talks empty words, but a real policy expert. Coincidentally, Portsmouth Herald, a well-known local newspaper in NSW, also mentioned in its endorsement to kasich: "In terms of government financial expenditure, experienced kasich deserves the trust and support of voters."

Kasich canvassed among the people. Image source: Associated Press

There are criticisms that kasich is too moderate? Ms Shays also defended him: "The most remarkable thing about kasich is that he knows when to cross-party cooperation and when to stick to principles. Some people say that kasich is too gentle like a teddy bear, because they don’t see kasich’s principled side. "

For example, on the issue of Ohio’s reduction of nursing house medical subsidy, kasich tried to defend the value of Republicans. It is understood that in the United States, elderly people who are ill can choose to live in nursing homes or receive treatment from hospitals at home, and the government will provide a large amount of subsidies to nursing homes every year. Although this has improved the service quality of nursing homes to a certain extent, it constitutes unfair competition for hospitals that provide home treatment services, and a large number of empty beds in nursing homes have also seriously wasted government subsidies and harmed the interests of taxpayers. In order to change this phenomenon, kasich proposed to reduce the subsidy for nursing homes by more than 400 million yuan in two years. As a result, it was opposed by three related lobbying teams in Ohio. They spent huge sums of money to make opposition advertisements and broadcast them on TV. However, this did not shake kasich’s determination, and he even used a controversial veto to protect his reform achievements in reducing subsidies.

Ms. Shays’ description can enrich the image of kasich in our hearts, but it is undeniable that many policies of kasich are actually controversial. For example, CBS News reported that in 2011, kasich, then governor of Ohio, supported the adoption of legislation to restrict social workers’ collective bargaining rights on work treatment, and as many as 350,000 people, including teachers, policemen and firefighters, were implicated. In the end, voters in the whole state overturned this legislation through a referendum convened by the trade union, which also reduced kasich’s support rate to around 30%. In 2015, kasich said that he would cut the financial subsidy for public schools by $84 million. This policy also brought a lot of opposition from the fiscal hawk.

Support voters: Tired of the endless mutual attacks within the Republican Party, kasich’s political outlook is very positive

At the celebration, kasich was in a good mood and put on a classic scissorhands posture. Jin Xiao Li tu

Besides the special guests, we also met many ordinary supporters of kasich at the celebration. Because all tickets for the celebration are free to the public, any kasich supporter can enter the venue and wait for the process of counting votes together to witness the final ranking of kasich. What kind of voters are there in kasich? What qualities do voters value most about kasich? What we want to know most about this celebration dinner in kasich is which voters kasich has attracted.

Many kasich supporters present said that they were tired of the endless negative advertisements attacking each other in the Republican Party, while kasich paid more attention to policies and did not take a negative attack route, which was exactly what they appreciated. The Boston Globe also echoed the views of these voters and reported that,Choosing kasich is actually a positive political outlook, because he doesn’t win the election by arousing the fear of voters like other candidates.

The conference hall was crowded with guests from all walks of life and the media, which was very crowded and lively. Jin Xiao Li tu

In the interview, it was found that many supporters of kasich were independent voters without party affiliation. For example, an African-American female voter who supported kasich said that in 2008 and 2012, her choice had been the Democratic Obama. She believes that this year, the Democratic Party’s policy was too radical because of Saunders’ influence. She began to worry about the high property tax, so she turned to support kasich, which tends to be conservative in economic policies and more tolerant in social issues. Coming from an immigrant family, she noticed that kasich not only supported giving illegal immigrants legal status, but also did not completely deny illegal immigrants the right to eventually obtain citizenship like other Republicans, which gave kasich a lot of points in the support rate among immigrants.

Kasich smiled and shook hands with the audience after his speech. Jin Xiao Li tu

According to the exit poll conducted by Fox News at the exits of polling stations, among all independent voters, kasich was second only to Trump, with 17% of the votes. Among all the swing voters (late voter), kasich surpassed Trump to become the first with 21% of the votes. In 2008, John Sidney McCain, who was not favored by the establishment at first, conquered moderate independents and wavering voters in New Hampshire by a large number of grassroots gatherings, which was exactly the same as kasich’s strategy in New Hampshire.

However, after all, the voters attending the celebration are all loyal fans of kasich, and the advantages of kasich in their hearts are precisely the disadvantages of other voters. For example, in 1993, kasich led a draft proposal to deprive the children of illegal immigrants of their birth citizenship, and he reiterated this view in the 2010 governor’s election. In this year’s primary election, however, kasich saw clearly the antipathy of immigrant groups to Trump, perhaps in order to seize these votes, and he completely denied his previous position in order to gain the support of immigrant groups.The Boston Globe reported that in order to win over neutral voters, kasich blindly shifted his political stance to the left. Some independent voters in New Hampshire even said that they had hesitated between Sanders and kasich, which is enough to show that kasich’s position has changed greatly.

Kasich’s wife waved to the audience. Jin Xiao Li tu

On-the-spot documentary: kasich took the second place unexpectedly, and the lobbying group came to express its demands.

In addition to voters, media and special guests, a group of people also appeared at kasich’s celebration that night. They have just arrived from Iowa, made a short stop in New Hampshire, and will soon follow the trajectory of the campaign to the next stop. They are a unique landscape in American politics-the Advocacy Group. Advocacy organizations, or lobbying groups, are organizations that promote certain policies and interests. They often attend the campaign activities of various candidates, and get in touch with various campaign teams before the candidates are elected, so as to uphold the interests they represent. At the celebration in kasich, we interviewed a small non-governmental lobbying group with the goal of "legalizing industrial Hemp (HEMP)".

Kasich’s campaign bus. Jin Xiao Li tu

Industrial hemp, also known as hemp, is different from medical hemp. Hemp is a recyclable energy used in agricultural planting, paper making, military supplies, chemical industry and so on. However, since 1937, the Marijuana in the United States began to strictly control all Cannabis crops, including hemp. At present, only four states in the United States can legally grow industrial cannabis. Hemp growers think that their interests have been seriously damaged. They actively contacted the National Hemp Association and organized this Road Trip after receiving financial support. The Hemp Team followed in the footsteps of the candidates with a national flag made entirely of Hemp, hoping that more candidates could show their support for the legalization of Hemp by taking photos with the national flag. As of the time of publication, they have made formal contact with Bernie Sanders team. According to the members of the organization, the Sanders team is coordinating an opportunity to communicate with them alone, listening to and considering the demands of the Chinese hemp organization.

At the end of the celebration, the scene was very crowded. Jin Xiao Li tu

In the crowded venue, Han Ma is by no means the only lobbying group that is gearing up. Compared with the folk nature of hemp organizations, many lobbying groups are more secretive interest groups. Many interest groups smell the news that kasich may be upset tonight, and are prepared to use the opportunity of the celebration to get face-to-face contact with the kasich team. For all kinds of lobbying organizations, kasich is definitely not the only choice. Which candidate has stronger momentum, where lobbying organizations will naturally increase. In the seemingly noisy environment of the celebration, many calm negotiations and political games have also begun in one corner.

At about 11 pm, the celebration in kasich officially ended, and many media were still reluctant to leave, racing against time to report the sudden emergence of kasich in New Hampshire. However, that happy atmosphere of the celebration did not erase the fact that kasich’s nationwide election was still not optimistic. In 2012, Newt Gingrich, the Republican candidate, put all his campaign centers in South Carolina. Although he won the first place in South Carolina, his nationwide momentum could not be compared with Romney, which is very similar to kasich’s strategy of betting all his money on New Hampshire this year. Even worse for kasich, his New Hampshire votes mainly came from urban areas, while the 13 states that held the primary election on March 1st "Super Tuesday" were located in the south, and their voters were relatively conservative, more like rural areas in New Hampshire. Kasich’s troubles don’t even have to wait until "Super Tuesday"-because the next stop of the primary election, South Carolina is one of the states with the highest proportion of black people and the most conservative ideology in the United States. Only by surviving the two stages of South Carolina and "Super Tuesday" first can kasich be said to be a new hope that the Republican establishment can rely on.