Goodnight, sweet prince: The long-ordained demise of John Kasich

At last calling time on his eating tour of America, John Kasich became the 16th and final Republican nominee to pull out of the Presidential race today.

Notable by his absence from headlines, talk shows and dank meme groups (despite my best efforts), Kasich ambled through his campaign like a cross between Old Gil from The Simpsons and your uncle trying to understand the new iPhone.

John Kasich caught my eye from the first Republican debate in Cleveland. Megyn Kelly asked him about gay marriage. Bracing myself for another “Not in the Bible, not in my name,” diatribe, like we’d already come to expect from the likes of Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, Kasich’s answer took me by surprise:

“Because somebody doesn’t think the way I do doesn’t mean that I can’t care about them or I can’t love them. So, if one of my daughters happened to be that, of course I would love them, and I would accept them, because you know what, that’s what we’re taught when we have strong faith. Issues like that are planted to divide us.”

I sat open-mouthed in front of my TV set. Has this guy not got the memo? He’s at the Republican debate. What’s he doing filling airtime with messages of (relative) compassion and level-headedness? What’s more, his answer was met with cheers and whoops from the crowd – and what’s more, women in the crowd.

My roommate, a staunch Republican, looked at me and said, “I like that guy.”

Could this be the future of the GOP ticket? An “I don’t like it, but I’ll have to go along with it,” approach to social issues, that could occupy the middle ground between Trump and Sanders?

The answer to these questions, obviously, was no.

Perhaps people saw through “aw-shucks” folksiness of his campaign. In particular, this interview with the editorial board of the New York Daily News, where he gushes,”I mean, my dad was a mailman. I mean, come on. I’m just a kid from McKees Rocks. I mean, being governor, I’ve accepted that. In New York City? Me? Running for President. It’s hard to believe.”

It is, in fact, pretty easy to believe that a former high-flying Lehman Brothers exec and Fox anchor would make it to New York City.

No-one outside Ohio jumped aboard the Kasich train. Republicans never warmed to him, despite his, in their eyes, excellent record on dismantling the state education system and Planned Parenthood in his home state.

In the coming months, after reluctantly falling in line behind a KKK-endorsed, obnoxious, loudmouthed plutocrat like Trump, America’s conservatives may look back and say “where did it all go wrong for us?” The whimpering end of the Kasich campaign may hold a few answers for them.

At least he got a free lunch.