Ohio’s Kasich joins GOP field, now at 16

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Saying “big ideas change the world,” Ohio Gov. John Kasich declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination Tuesday.

Kasich, 63, launched his campaign at Ohio State University before a crowd of 2,000. The event marked the entry of a strong-willed and sometimes abrasive governor into a nomination race that now has 16 notable Republicans.

A veteran congressman as well as governor, Kasich told voters he is the only GOP candidate with experience in three broad areas of political leadership – the federal budget, national security and state government. He also spent nearly a decade at the Lehman Brothers financial services firm.

“I have the experience and the testing,” he said, “the testing which shapes you and prepares you for the most important job in the world, and I believe I know how to work and help restore this great United States.”

As budget chairman in the House, he became an architect of a deal in 1997 that balanced the federal budget.

Now in his second term in swing-state Ohio, he’s helped erase a budget deficit projected at nearly $8 billion when he entered office, boosted Ohio’s rainy-day fund to a historic high and seen private-sector employment rebound to its pre-recession level.

Kasich worked toward his goals with budget cutting, privatization of parts of Ohio’s government and other, often business-style innovations.

Unions, which turned back an effort by Kasich and fellow Republicans to limit public workers’ collective bargaining rights, say Kasich’s successes have come at a cost to local governments and schools, and say new Ohio jobs lack the pay and benefits of the ones they replaced.

Kasich embraces conservative ideals but bucks his party on occasion and disdains the Republican sport of bashing Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. Visiting the early voting state of New Hampshire on Tuesday following his announcement, Kasich said his political career has taught him that the two parties must work together to get things done.