Former Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich, a harsh critic of President Donald Trump, is expected to speak on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee next month.
According to “a person with direct knowledge” of Kasich’s plans “who insisted on anonymity to discuss strategy,” the invitation comes as no shock to the president or his GOP followers, as Kasich ran unsuccessfully against Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, and obviously has not gotten over that loss four years later.
Meanwhile, Kasich, the Ohio governor from 2011 to 2019 and former member of the U.S House of Representatives, has declined to comment on the report, as has the Biden campaign and DNC.
It is thought that an endorsement of Biden from Kasich could possibly strengthen the former vice president’s run, as it looks very weak at present. Democrats are hoping that this endorsement from Kasich could boost Biden’s numbers in Ohio, a state that Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2016 despite Kasich being the governor at the time.
Deputy Campaign Manager for Biden, Kate Bedingfield, told the AP she could not confirm specific discussions with Kasich but said that the campaign has shown signs of working.
“In terms of Republican supporters, I think it speaks to a career of being able to work across the aisle, of being able to actually get things done,” Bedingfield said. “We welcome the support of anybody who’d rather see Joe Biden be president than Donald Trump.”
President Trump’s campaign mocked the fact that Kasich is helping Biden. “Republicans will never recover,” Abigail Marone, specialist for the campaign, posted via social media.
“Democrats recruit Democrat to speak at Democratic Convention,” posted Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller.
Trump campaign National Press Secretary Hogan Gidley, said, “The grievances of a disgruntled paid commentator from CNN won’t change the fact that it’s just a political speech, at a political event, for his own personal political purposes, and it will be as brief and irrelevant as his failed run for President.”
While Democrats have seriously scaled back the DNC convention to a smaller venue in Milwaukee on August 17-20, supposedly due to pandemic concerns, Biden is still expected to deliver his acceptance speech even though delegates have been asked not to make the trip to Milwaukee – everything will be done virtually.
Trump and the Republicans, however, have cleverly worked hard to give the president a “celebration” instead. The Republican National Convention has chosen to utilize safe operating procedures such as limiting the number of attendees so they can safely social distance and using a variety of different venues, including some that are outdoors, for safety purposes.
The GOP does not represent the “cancel culture”, so they will not be phoning their convention in virtually, as the Democrats have done for the past 4 months, they will represent in person, for America to see them work.
