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One week ago, Rand Paul officially suspended his presidential campaign.
While the move was perhaps inevitable after disappointing Iowa results, his absence did leave an unanswered question: Where will disaffected libertarians and independents go?
Answers abounded almost immediately. Ted Cruz? Donald Trump? Even Bernie Sanders?
The circular speculating belies an important point – the Paul campaign may have struggled, but as Reason’s Nick Gillespie recently pointed out, the electorate’s slow, steady move toward independence and libertarian sympathies continues.
For years, I have considered myself very much a part of this “libertarian moment.”
As a teenager, I found my political home in a rag-tag collection of activists motivated by the quixotic campaign of a doctor from Texas.
As a college student, I thrived in libertarian student organizations and small-government activism.
Today, I work every day helping lead an independent organization that’s dedicated to cutting government spending.
It’s even thanks to “the movement” that I met my husband, who served as Dr. Paul’s fundraising director in 2008.
In many ways, there’s little about the 2016 election that can make someone like me happy.
On the Republican side, there are near-universal calls to bust budget caps; candidates itching for “carpet bombing” the Islamic State; and a populist frontrunner who casually discusses killing terrorists’ families, supports eminent domain and economic protectionism, and brags about bringing back “waterboarding and much worse.”
And the Democrats? A hawkish establishment favorite or an open socialist.
Hardly inspiring.
Especially in light of these options, it’s time to take a second look at Tuesday night’s second-place finisher, Governor John Kasich.
Coming off of his unexpected surge in the Granite State, Kasich will likely be getting a lot more attention in coming days.
Libertarians and independents might find a lot to like.
Kasich, who campaigned across New Hampshire with a portable debt clock, often talks of the fact that he was a “key player” in passing the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Drilling down into details, though, shows that his dedication to fiscal responsibility today is far more substantive than most of his rivals can claim.
Business Insider called his leadership of Ohio the best among governors seeking the Presidency, based on Ohio’s high ranking in its Economic Evaluation of States. Under his tenure, the jobless rate in the state has gone from above the national average to 5 percent below, while a record number of businesses have been created.
Federal fiscal policy also shows a clear distinction.
In July, Defense One called him “the fiscal-defense hawk you don’t remember,” highlighting his effective fight as Budget Chair against buying more B-2 bombers and his push for overall Pentagon reforms.
In August of this year, Governor Kasich caught heat from the neoconservative wing of his party for saying the Pentagon sequester “doesn’t matter” – because he wants to fight for savings even if he opposes the across-the-board cuts.
In a field dominated by endless calls to hike Pentagon spending to the moon and back, Kasich often demurs, preferring to highlight his record fighting for reform at the nation’s largest bureaucracy, and saying he’ll spend more “if necessary.”
To be clear – a prominent Republican whose last name is not Paul, Amash, or Massie, who wants to limit Pentagon spending is all but revolutionary in 2016.
There’s a reason Jeb Bush plans to undertake a “scorched-Earth” campaign against Kasich in South Carolina, saying he “has consistently supported gutting the military.”
Sharing common neoconservative enemies, of course, does not mean libertarians will be comfortable with Kasich’s foreign policy. He’s called for increasing the size of the Navy and is open to boots on the ground to fight ISIS. He’s meandered into discussions of “punching Putin on the nose” in recent debates.
We may not be happy with what FiveThirtyEight recently characterized as a 71 percent hawkish platform, but stacked against the 100 percent dyed-in-the-wool neoconservatism of some his rivals, uncomfortable comments are perhaps less troubling.
For libertarians, this election will not offer perfect options. Few elections do.
Libertarians and independents can appreciate Kasich’s kind comments on gay marriage or his calls for sanity on immigration policy. We can get excited about his support for criminal justice reform and his all-too-rare nuanced position on NSA spying.
But those same voters will rightly find themselves turned off by his stubborn opposition to marijuana legalization – and of course the very bad judgement call he and a half-dozen other GOP governors made on Medicaid expansion.
Governor Kasich is unquestionably not a libertarian – why is he nevertheless worthy of support from independents and libertarians?
The answer comes down to one factor: Results.
Governor Kasich has many positions that ruffle libertarian feathers – but almost every one is shared in more extreme terms by the rest of the field. On the issues where he is libertarian-friendly, he often stands alone in stark contrast to his rivals and based on a history of tangible accomplishments.
At the end of the day, results do matter, and if you’re a libertarian or independent voter who plans to vote in this bleakest of elections, your one bright spot may be a hopeful governor from Ohio.
