Fresh off his strong second-place finish in New Hampshire, Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Wednesday said he planned to stick to the positive campaign message that has carried him for eight months. But he said he would fight back if other candidates hit him.
“I’m not just going to sit there and be a marshmallow or some kind of a pincushion where people just pound me,” Kasich told CNN’s Jamie Gangel on Wednesday. “Where I come from, the blue collar town that I come from, if you came in and beat our football team, we just broke all the windows on your bus. That’s just a joke.”
Kasich drew 16% of the vote Tuesday night, enough to well outpace his other contenders in the “establishment lane,” including Jeb Bush and Chris Christie. But they all fell well short of Donald Trump, who dominated the field with 35% of the vote.
The race is about to get a lot tougher for Kasich, now that he has catapulted to the main stage and is surrounded by Republicans not named Trump who are looking for a foothold. He said he would adhere close to his positive message.
“But, you know, and I can’t predict exactly what the future is, but I believe that this message of ‘We can, we’re Americans’ before ‘We’re Republicans and Democrats’ — these problems that we have can be solved, that we can — we can get the shine back in America, you know. Leave no one behind,” Kasich said. “I just think these are very important messages, more than me spending my time being negative about somebody else.”