The Baltimore Sun praised Republican presidential candidate John Kasich's ability to cross party lines. The Ohio governor earned the newspaper's endorsement for the Republican nomination. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI |
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BALTIMORE, April 25 (UPI) -- The Baltimore Sun endorsed Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Monday as the Republican nominee for president, one day before Maryland's primary.
"Maryland Republicans well understand how to elect a leader who can attract support from independent and Democratic voters," the editorial began. "They did it in 2014 when they picked Larry Hogan, and the governor's willingness to stick to a pro-business, fiscally conservative message — and to sidestep divisive issues and compromise at times — has made him broadly popular.
"In a GOP presidential field whittled down to three, there is only one candidate who comes anywhere close to following this formula — Ohio Gov. John Kasich."
The newspaper said Kasich has offered "genuine statesmanship" compared with rivals Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, and touted his poll numbers in head-to-head match-ups with the Democratic candidates.
"It should come as no surprise that polls have consistently shown that Mr. Kasich has a better chance of winning in November than the vulgarian New York developer with a frighteningly poor grasp of foreign policy or the Princeton debater and preposterous Ronald Reagan poseur with a demonstrated inability to work with others, Democratic or Republican, and who promises more of the same if elected," the editorial said.
Trump has a 14-point lead in the state over Kasich, 41 to 27 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Cruz is in third with 23 percent.
The editorial admits that Kasich can't win on the first ballot.
"Mr. Kasich has won too few delegates to claim his party's nomination outright no matter what happens in Maryland or elsewhere (ditto for Mr. Cruz), whereas Mr. Trump's lopsided victory in New York last Tuesday has raised the possibility that he may yet achieve that goal," the editorial said. "Still, a brokered Republican National Convention remains a distinct possibility, and Mr. Kasich correctly argues that a victory this week in Northeast states including Maryland could give him the momentum he needs to ultimately win over potentially deadlocked delegates at the convention this July in Cleveland."
Kasich "sometimes gets wrongly labeled as a moderate, but his record is not quite that," according to the editorial. The newspaper noted his actions on abortion — denying funding to Planned Parenthood and requiring women seeking abortions to undergo ultrasounds he has enacted in Ohio.
It also criticized some of his positions, saying his "executive clemency is poor, and his desire to enforce the federal prohibition on marijuana in states that have legalized the drug is misguided, as are his attacks on collective bargaining, including a law restricting the rights of public employees such as teachers and police, a measure that was overwhelmingly rejected by voters in his state."
