CDZ Integrity: Kasich, the Disability Integration Act and a Simple Question from Voters

[320 Years of History]

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This morning I watched the CNN Town Hall - John Kasich and His Family. During the event, a small cabal of disabled folks, among them Michelle Fridley (film producer), protested, seeking to get heard and get the answer to one question. After the town hall, Mr. Kasich met with the protesters. Later this morning, I caught a piece of Don Lemon's show, CNN Tonight, wherein he interviewed Ms. Fridley. He asked her, among other things:

1. How was she treated at the town hall?
2. Was she satisfied with Mr. Kasich's remarks given when he met with her and the other protesters after the event ended? (There's only about 1.5 minutes of video of the meeting.)

Her answers to both questions:

1. Badly. She and her group's attendance was, as per Ms. Fridley, known well in advance of the event by the event planners and Mr. Kasich's team. They were the first people in line to get in, having waited outside in the cold all night to be admitted into the facility at "7 a.m." (Dear God! Seven in the morning!) Anyway, they apparently waited there all day long, for the event wasn't until the evening in her local time.
   
   The group were placed in the rear SRO section, i.e., the very back of the back of the auditorium, and by the time the town hall began, they in their wheelchairs were totally hidden behind rows of folks who were standing. They could see nothing and could not be seen. That is apparently what inspired them to protest. Ms. Fridley said that as they couldn't be seen, could see nothing, they resolved to at least be heard.
2. No. In short, they directly asked him if he supported the Disability Integration Act (DIA). Did he directly answer the question? No! She noted that Kasich promised someone'd call her and she said that hours later, nobody had called.

Truly, I don't know a damn thing about the DIA. I haven't even read the summary for which I provided the link above. I frankly don't think I will read it anytime soon because it's content isn't important to me right now, and its content isn't the point of this thread.

What this thread is about, once again, is that we have yet another GOP candidate, who, in the face of all the obvious voter disgust and dissatisfaction with existing and would be elected officials, John Kasich didn't give the woman and her group a direct answer to what is a very simple question. Indeed, that he (his campaign) knew in advance that they'd be in attendance at the town hall, there's just no excuse for his not being able to boil his stance on the DIA down to a "yes" or "no" answer. Moreover, based on the post-event video, it appears he didn't even bother to be prepared for a question from a group he knew would be present that evening and therefore have a clear answer to a direct question about what surely must be the most important piece of disabled community legislation at the moment. WTF, dude?!?

How do you do that? How does a person who wants someone's vote (potentially two of them, for if they want it in the primary, they want it in the general too), who knows that specific person will attend their political event, and who then bothers to meet personally with that person, show up for the meeting prepared to say nothing better than "I have the best person for this...you'll get a call." Just how damned rude, how contrivedly arrogant, can the man have been?!?

What would it have taken for him to have had "one of his people" (Mr. Kasich's phrase from the town hall) study the act and brief him on it (or to have himself taken the minute it'd have taken to read the summary I linked to above) and be prepared to answer the question? I mean really? It's a bill. Bills require "yay" or "nay" to pass. An executive must sign it or not sign it, effectively, again, saying "yay" or "nay" to it. That's all that woman and her friends were asking for! That's not asking for too much.

I don't know how many of you have jobs that consist of going from one meeting to the next, but I know that as Governor of Ohio, that's essentially what his job was, and I know that's basically what my job entails -- preparing for meetings, participating in or leading meetings, managing/doing follow up work after meetings. There is no way in hell I, or my staff, or my clients would ever show up unprepared for a meeting. Every one of us would sooner cancel or postpone the meeting then have our audience show up to find that we are fully unprepared and have nothing of substance to say. Having to postpone/cancel is terrible, but showing up unprepared is terrible times ten!! It's just not what one does when one has one and only one shot to make an meaningful impact with the audience.

In sales, it's said that if you satisfy a customer, they'll tell one or two people. If you piss them off, they'll tell everyone they can find every time they get the most oblique opportunity to do so. Politics is the one place where the first conditional doesn't pan out as it does in goods and services sales. In politics, folks will sing a politician's praises "'til the cows come home" if they are pleased with the politician. Kasich blew it with that woman and the several folks in her group. Big Time!

Now among those of you who have read this far into this post, some of you may be thinking Ms. Fridley is too picky, demanding, and that she expects too much. I disagree. That woman and her friends sat in the cold of the upstate New York night (it was in the 30s) for God knows how long, and then sat inside for another 12+ hours, to hear a simple answer to a simple question and John Kasich let them down and didn't deliver it. I think that woman did way more than enough to deserve a straight answer to a simple question.

I know how outraged I am over the fact that Mr. Kasich didn't give it to her. I bet she and her friends are far more ticked off than I. And that's the problem with every one of the GOP candidates. Now I get it, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders aren't too much better, but they are better. In their recent debates, they've been giving at least some direct answers to direct questions; moreover, the questions to which they give direct answer are not always "yes/no" questions.

• Democratic debate observations
• Ted Cruz Town Hall observations

Even as I say that, I realize that the issue of candidates not answering questions is one of who's the least bad about not answering rather than who's actually good and consistent with it. Right now, I think Mr. Sanders is leading the pack.

The only way things are ever going to get better is if we as voters consistently and without exception....


No matter whom you prefer in the 2016 elections, insist that your candidate directly answer questions and withhold your vote if they refuse to do so!!!

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[jwoodie]

The Disability Integration Act isn't an Act at all; it is a Senate Bill with a nice sounding name. As such, it will be chock full of amendments before ever being sent to the President's desk. The correct answer to the question should be:

"Although I support the general aims of this bill, I would have to see the final version, passed by both houses of Congress, before deciding if it should be signed it into law. To do so now would be premature and irresponsible."

 

[320 Years of History]

The Disability Integration Act isn't an Act at all; it is a Senate Bill with a nice sounding name. As such, it will be chock full of amendments before ever being sent to the President's desk. The correct answer to the question should be:

"Although I support the general aims of this bill, I would have to see the final version, passed by both houses of Congress, before deciding if it should be signed it into law. To do so now would be premature and irresponsible."

That would be a somewhat reasonable and somewhat better response for him to have given, although it's still not an answer to the question he was asked.

"As it's written now, yes," or "As it's written now, no," is the answer he should have given. He could then have expounded on what he thinks should be altered so that he could give an unqualified "yes" answer. He could have instead or also identified what in the act as written form the basis for his saying "no." That is the nature of what is meant by "direct answer," and that is what voters deserve.

 

[jwoodie]

The Disability Integration Act isn't an Act at all; it is a Senate Bill with a nice sounding name. As such, it will be chock full of amendments before ever being sent to the President's desk. The correct answer to the question should be:

"Although I support the general aims of this bill, I would have to see the final version, passed by both houses of Congress, before deciding if it should be signed it into law. To do so now would be premature and irresponsible."

That would be a somewhat reasonable and somewhat better response for him to have given, although it's still not an answer to the question he was asked.

"As it's written now, yes," or "As it's written now, no," is the answer he should have given. He could then have expounded on what he thinks should be altered so that he could give an unqualified "yes" answer. He could have instead or also identified what in the act as written form the basis for his saying "no." That is the nature of what is meant by "direct answer," and that is what voters deserve.

I think it is unreasonable to expect Presidential candidates to personally monitor the current status of every bill in Congress. Instead of that, I would prefer broad policy guidelines and how they would approach unexpected problems.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Kasich was featured on The Daily Show for the astonishing insensitivity of his response to a young man in the Bronx who made an impassioned plea to Kasich, to which Kasich responded with a really flip, dismissive joke. Kasich is a remarkably selfish man, who doesn't care about anything but himself. This makes his exactly the same as everyone else in politics, unfortunately. More unfortunate is that Kasich's character is extremely consequential in this election cycle, in which he is clinging to the slim chance that he will be more likely to be handed the nomination if he stays in the race, based on rules of former conventions, which may not pertain this time around. If Trump gets to 1237, it will be Kasich's fault.

 

[320 Years of History]

Kasich is a remarkably selfish man, who doesn't care about anything but himself.

I didn't see the remark/show, but your claim, though it could be inaccurate, for now seems entirely plausible to me based on what I saw in his town hall the other night and described in this thread's OP.