Kasich announces bid for presidency

Associated Press, February 15, 1999

WASHINGTON -- Representative John R. Kasich, advocate of a 10 percent tax cut for both rich and poor, is joining the growing list of Republicans who have formally announced plans to seek the GOP presidential nomination next year.

Kasich, an Ohio Republican, said he would file papers today with the Federal Election Commission to set up an exploratory committee and would then travel to New Hampshire and Iowa to begin his uphill battle for the nomination.

The 46-year-old House Budget Committee chairman joins four other Republicans who have formed exploratory committees -- Senator John McCain of Arizona, former vice president Dan Quayle, conservative activist Gary Bauer, and former secretary of education Lamar Alexander.

Two other Republicans now considered front-runners for the GOP nomination, Texas Governor George W. Bush and former Red Cross president Elizabeth Dole, have yet to announce their intentions. Publisher Steve Forbes also is expected to make another run for the White House, and a second run by former California governor Pete Wilson is possible.

A leader in balancing the federal budget, Kasich unveiled legislation earlier this month to cut US tax collections by $743 million over the next decade through a 10 percent tax cut. Tax cuts, he said, reflected his belief that the United States "ought to be run from the bottom up" by letting people decide what to do about schooling their children or planning for retirement.

"I'm a different kind of politician, particularly in my party," Kasich said on NBC's "Meet the Press," "and I'm going to try to build a better America, try to inspire some people."

Kasich characterized himself as a mailman's son who grew up in a blue-collar community near Pittsburgh and "got into politics because I wanted to change the world."

He said that since 1952, the year he was born, there has been a Nixon, Bush, or Dole on every GOP ticket except in 1964, and that it was time for a change in the Republican Party. "They're like Pepsi and Coke," he said. "Everybody knows their names."

Kasich said he was not concerned about the low level of his name recognition. "The beauty of this system is that you can go to Iowa and New Hampshire, and that's where people smell you, they poke you, they look you in the eye," he said. He added that Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both used the Iowa-New Hampshire phenomenon to get their successful bids for the presidency on track.

Material from Reuters was included in this report.