Sep 19, 2016 3 min read

At the start of this presidential election season, Republicans had 17 candidates to choose from, among them senators, governors and former governors – their temperaments and political acumen varied widely, but they at least brought policy knowledge and experience in elected office to the contest.

And who did the GOP end up nominating? A blustering, know-nothing reality television star. Go figure.

It could be that 100 years from now, when historians are poring through the remnants of our time, they will puzzle over the bewildering fever that overtook the Republican Party and led them to make Donald Trump their standard-bearer instead of an obviously much more qualified, much more likable and much more electable candidate – namely, Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Merely governing the nation’s ultimate swing state, where he is popular with Democrats, should have made Kasich a strong bet to get the nomination. But he is also from McKees Rocks, and could have put Pennsylvania seriously in play in the general election if he had been the nominee. More moderate and conciliatory than many of his fellow Republicans, he could have found a receptive audience with white, college-educated voters who are turned off by the rancid stench of bigotry that hangs over Trump and his campaign, particularly in places like Virginia, Colorado and New Hampshire.

Tactics and electoral math aside, Kasich has experience in both a statehouse and on Capitol Hill – the ideal kind of resume for a prospective president.

And yet, they chose …

As Trump struts across the landscape, expressing his admiration for Vladimir Putin, musing about arresting magazine publishers, trampling on civil liberties, stealing the oil of vanquished foes or vowing to get “tough” on terrorism without offering a smidgen of substance on how his “strategy” would be executed, Kasich offered a glimpse of what could have been last week when he ventured to Washington, D.C., and offered support for an initiative being pushed by the dreaded Barack Obama – the Trans Pacific Partnership. After the White House meeting, he went to the pressroom and sensibly outlined why setting up a trade deal with Pacific Rim nations, excluding Russia and China, would be good for the United States in the long run. He also explained why – where are the smelling salts? – he was publicly offering assistance to Obama.

“There’s plenty of things that I disagree with President Obama on,” Kasich said. “But the idea that I’m a Republican and therefore I can’t work with Democrats, or you’re a Democrat and you can’t work with Republicans – how does anybody think that the issues of debt, Social Security, Medicare, health care, any of these issues are going to be resolved when we spend all of our time fighting with one another?”

Whether Kasich figures in the 2020 presidential contest remains to be seen. Kasich will be out of a job then, since he is term-limited and cannot seek a third term as Ohio’s governor, and will be 68 years old. He could be viewed as yesterday’s news. And, of course, Trump has yet to lose this year’s election. But we can only hope Kasich’s streak of Midwestern practicality and his aversion of pointless ideological battles help shape the dialogue within the Republican Party in the years ahead and help make it a more constructive, inclusive and centrist party.