At Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business Monday afternoon, John Kasich made a point to emphasize his willingness to work across party lines – with a nod to one of New Hampshire’s top Democrats.
Former Democratic Governor John Lynch now works at the Tuck School where Kasich was speaking and introduced the candidate ahead of the event. Kasich, in turn, nodded to Lynch several times throughout his remarks.
“Your governor here, I said to him – if I win, because I know his background, if I win, you’re going to have to come help me,” Kasich said. “Because it cannot be done with one party. And the plans have to be reasonable – they can’t be, you know, ‘I’m gonna have a 10 percent flat tax.’”
Instead, Kasich outlined a version of his own tax proposal – a 28 percent top rate, 15 percent capital gains, “a corporate tax that goes from the highest down to 25 percent that allows you to write off plant and equipment and prevent double taxation.”
“It’s reasonable,” Kasich said. “It’s not some crazy, out there in space plan.”
This theme of pragmatism over political expediency was one stressed repeatedly by Kasich throughout the event.
“Somebody said, ‘He’s not the flashiest guy,’” Kasich told one crowd member a few moments earlier. “I used to always be the flashy guy, now I’m not flashy anymore, I don’t know. But here’s the thing – the proposals that I have are proposals designed to be enacted, not to win a vote.”
In all, Kasich spoke at the school for about an hour, fielding questions on health care, the environment, balancing the federal budget and campaign finance reform, among other issues.
Kasich has said a strong finish in New Hampshire is vital to his campaign and has been spending much of his time in the state over the last year. The stop of Dartmouth was one of several on his campaign schedule Monday, with additional stops planned throughout the state today and Wednesday.
