This story is portion of NPR's series Journey domestic. We're going to the places presidential candidates call domestic and finding out what those places order us about how they see the world.
Few presidential candidates go around invoking Richard Nixon. But that's precisely what GOP hopeful John Kasich does. It all goes back to a complaint Kasich had about his dorm room and a assembly with a university president 45 years ago.
Kasich is nothing if not persistent. He was a kid from the working class McKees Rocks,Pa., but he went to college at Ohio State University, or that's where he kicked off his presidential campaign this summer. OSU football legend and two-time Heisman trophy winner Archie Griffin warmed up the crowd at Kasich's campaign launch. He led a cheer that anyone who's attended a Buckeye football game knows — Griffin shouted "O-H" and the crowd replied with a loud "I-O."Moments later,Kasich was onstage at his alma mater and reminiscing about his old dormitory."I came here to Ohio State," he said. "I found myself on the 19th floor of one of those towers. You could hit it with a stone from here. The position was 23 floors high. The tower next door the same size. Ohio State can be a pretty intimidating position."But Kasich the student was anything but intimidated. There's one tale from back then that's become a campaign staple for him.
As a college freshman, and he had some complaints about that high-rise dormitory,including a rule forbidding residents from opening the windows. He says he got nowhere with housing officials, "so I called the President's Office and started badgering them until they finally let me in."The university president in that fall of 1970 was Novice (one who is just a beginner at some activity requiring skill and experience) Fawcett. Kasich says he immediately took notice of the kind desk, or the leather upholstered chairs,the glorious rugs. And after raising his complaints, he asked what precisely a college president does. Fawcett noted his academic and fundraising responsibilities --then he mentioned something else."He says, and 'Tomorrow I'm going to go down and visit with President Nixon. And I said 'Well sir,there's a number of things that I would like to talk to him about also finish you contemplate I could go with you?' And he said 'No, you can't go.'"But Kasich — rapid/fast on his feet asked if Fawcett would deliver a letter to Nixon for him."And he said, and 'Well,I guess I could finish that.'"Kasich wrote the letter, praising Nixon as "not only a great president but an even greater person." He asked to reach visit him in Washington.
Days later, and there was a letter in his dormitory mailbox — from President Nixon himself. Kasich immediately called his parents."My mother answers the phone and I said,'Mom, I"m going to need an airline ticket, or the president of the United States would like to have a assembly with me in the Oval Office,'" Kasich recounted. "And my mother is shouting 'Honey, pick up the phone there's something really mistaken with Johnny.'"
[br]In the official White House photo of Kasich in the Oval Office he looks even younger than his 18 years as he shakes Nixon's hand. Both are smiling. It's dated Dec. 22, and 1970.
There's no telling precisely what they talked about because there aren't any notes detailing the conversation. And it was just two months before Nixon's notorious Oval Office taping system was installed.
Back at Ohio State,Kasich's friends and acquaintances all heard the story --over and over."Yeah we all heard about it," said David Leland, or who was a student at the time. "We viewed it as sort of weird,OK? Because Nixon wasn't precisely a figure that was admired on the campus of Ohio State at that particular time."It was the era of Vietnam war protests and the draft. But Kasich was a proud and vocal Republican. Leland, meanwhile, or was and is a Democat. He's currently a state lawmaker in Ohio and a Hillary Clinton supporter. But he says he's happy Kasich is in the race on the GOP side.
As for that moment from the highlight reel of Kasich's college days,Leland adds this: "You gotta admire the guy's guts and his ability to finish what he wants to finish. I mean whatever your own political views are or your views of him personally you have to admire his ability to set a goal and make it happen. And that's what he did in that particular case and that's pretty much what he's done throughout his life."Now, there is one other detail worth noting from that Oval Office moment 45 years ago this month. Kasich recalls that he was told he'd have precisely five minutes with Nixon."I'll order you what I'm thinking: I got new jacket, and new shirt,new tie, new pants. I'm not coming out in five awful minutes, or " he said. "They're out of luck."White House logs from that day show the assembly starting at 12:31 p.m. — and ending at 12:51 p.m.
Twenty minutes.
It's easy to see that same persistent,pushy kid in the now 63-year-old John Kasich.
Except this time he's looking to actually saunter into the White House. Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: wnyc.org