Ohio Gov. John Kasich says the oft-repeated vow from Republicans to repeal Obamacare is "stupid."
"I mean, what a stupid promise," he told a radio host in Wisconsin. "The base of the party is furious because you didn't repeal Obamacare. How are you going to repeal Obamacare when Obama's president?"
Of the three GOP candidates who remain in the presidential race, Kasich comes closest to being a representative of the party establishment. Although he has said in the past that he opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), he notably embraced the federally-funded expansion of Medicaid that many other Republican governors rejected.
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Given that none of the three remaining Republican candidates for president are now even willing to commit to supporting the GOP's eventual nominee, the fact that one of them is calling the party's strategy on Obamacare "stupid" isn't so notable.
Instead, it displays the extent to which the GOP presidential race has veered off the course envisioned when Republican contenders started joining the race a year ago.
Candidates such as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who hewed the conservative line by rejecting the Medicaid expansion, have been overshadowed and marginalized by candidates who are either utterly disdained by the party establishment or are openly contemptuous of some of the party's core beliefs.
Donald Trump has called the PPACA a "disaster" but has made a number of statements suggesting he believes the government can offer affordable coverage to all citizens, a position that puts him closer to Bernie Sanders ideologically than to most other Republicans.
Ted Cruz, who came to prominence by engineering a government shutdown over PPACA funding, has repeatedly highlighted Trump's apostasy on the issue, but contrary to assumptions about the GOP electorate that governed conventional wisdom for years, Trump's apparent support for major government services, such as Medicare, Social Security and health care, does not bother many Republican voters.
Kasich, meanwhile, has doubled down on his shtick as the candidate who cares about the poor, and has defended his support for the Medicaid expansion in those terms.
It is mathematically impossible for Kasich, who has only won his home state of Ohio, to win the nomination before the convention. His only chance is of becoming his party's standard bearer is to prevail in a contested convention.
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