hort on money, down in the polls, and expecting his first child in February 2000, Representative John Kasich of Ohio will announce today that he will not run for president, a source close to him said yesterday.
Kasich is expected to throw his support behind Governor George W. Bush of Texas for the Republican nomination, the source said. He is the first in the crowded GOP field to abandon the race.
''He really likes Bush and Bush's message, which is close to his,'' a Kasich friend said. And as he traveled the coffee circuit in Iowa and New Hampshire, Kasich was told repeatedly that it was not his time, the friend said.
Kasich, who has languished in the low single digits in polls, was able to raise only about $600,000 in the second quarter of this year, according to Federal Election Commission reports. By combining that with money he raised as a House member, Kasich had about $1.8 million in the bank, compared with Bush's $36 million.
Besides opting out of the presidential race, Kasich is also not expected to run for reelection to the House. He has encouraged a candidate in Ohio to begin raising money for his seat. He also stands to lose his Budget Committee chairmanship in the next Congress because of Republican term-limit rules.
More than money and votes has been on Kasich's mind as he has campaigned in Iowa and New Hampshire. In a recent trip to Iowa, Kasich told the Globe that he and his wife, Karen, have been trying to conceive a child. While he visited a Des Moines hospital neonatal center, Kasich animatedly spoke to each of the parents there, and admired all the newborns.
This weekend, as he campaigned at the Tilt'n Diner in Tilton, N.H., Kasich met a woman carrying a 3-week-old baby boy. ''I just found out I'm going to be a father,'' Kasich blurted out to the mother as he cooed over her infant. He said his baby is due in mid-February, just after the New Hampshire primary, which is scheduled for Feb. 8, barring another state's effort to move ahead of New Hampshire.
A source close to Kasich described his impending fatherhood as ''a happy coincidence,'' but added, ''If Karen weren't having a baby, he'd still be getting out.''
As a candidate exploring a run for president, Kasich told voters that he believed in cutting ''that which does not work,'' including the energy, education and commerce departments, as well as federal funding for the arts. Kasich also campaigned on providing federal dollars for school choice programs and instituting a ''loser pays'' requirement in the legal system.
Globe correspondent Laura A. Kiernan contributed to this report.
