John arce sick is a politician New York Times bestselling author, former foster television host, and ultimately an american citizen who believed that unity is the answer to ourur most, promised problems. He has had a career in public and private sectors. His servicemember congresss from central ohio for a number of years he. S elected to the house that just 30 years old. After becoming the youngest state senator and ohio history. He beat went on to become the chairman of the House Budget Committee and balance the federal budget four times, a feat not accomplished since. After leaving congress in 2000, k6 worked as a managing director inin the end banking business for the Lehman Brothers where herc helped Companies Get the resources they need to succeed and create jobs. K6 is the author of four New York Times best sellers. Courage is contagious, stand for something, the battle for americas soul, every other monday, and most recently to pass america divided or united which reflects on his 2016 run on primary president ial candidate and his hopes for americas future. His latest book, entitled its up to us, ten little ways we can bring about big change was just released. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming john kasich. [applause] thank you. [applause] is it possible for whoevers upstairs or turn the lights down just a little bit so i can see everyone . There also attractive. [laughter] that is the queue, turned them down just a little bit, thank you. Heyy folks, i am so excited to be in ohio. I live in ohio, i used to be governor of ohio did you know that . And that was a wonderful experience, had a great time. And he went through all this resume, but let me tell you a couple of things that might give you a little bit better sense of who i am. Many of you, after eight years shed think youd really know me, but i dont know if you know what makes me tick, or how o i got to where i am. I was raised in pittsburgh, and just a little town outside of pittsburgh called mckees rocks. And my father carried mail on his back for 28 years. And my mother was inandout of the workforce depending on what was happening with us. And mckees rocks was a very, very bluecollar, democratic town, in fact they told me they support roadblocks up to keep republicans out, but it was conservative, it was godfearing, it was kind of basicco values, common sense, all those kinds of things. My fathers father was a coal miner, and he had a very, very hard life. Because he didnt have anybody to represent him, and he would go down the coal mine and what he would come up they would not pay him for his work. It was tough. And my father and my uncle george, actually would go to school sometimes in flour sacks that were made up by their mother. My mothers, her mother lived with us and she was from yugoslavia and she could barely speak english. And so it was, you could just imagine it was not a family that was living in the highlife, or any of that stuff. I decided that when i graduated from high school, that i was going to make a big change. So i made a term attic decision and fateful decision to go 180 miles to the west, to that Little School called ohio state university. Right . And when i got there, i found myself in one of the towers. You all know those towers. Youve been to Football Games, youve seen them on television, or even on the campus. The tower i was in was 23 floors high and it was filled with all 18yearold freshman boys who had never been away from home before. And the nextdoor was a duplicate tower filled with all 18yearold freshman girls who had never been away from home before. Hmand i learned later, that in the downtown of columbus, they used to refer to the towers as sodom and gomorrah. [laughter] pr my uncle had told me jonnu always start at the top so i decided i was going to express my concern and get some things fixed so i called the president s office and i said id like to have a meeting with the president. The lady just me off and i called her the next day and the next day and i finally told her they said let me explain to you maam im going to have a meeting with the president. If i have to wait outside of the Administration Building for him to come im going to have a meeting. Ad she said whether why do you come in tomorrow must get this over with. I putow on my best blue jeans ad and a neck tie and went in to see the president and for some of you who are ohio state experts you might remember him. He was just a wonderful guy and i remember going into his office and he had beautiful g lighting and beautiful carpeting and a beautiful big desk and beautiful furniture and other green upholstered chairs and i was pretty impressed with that. He said whats on your mind and i told them. He said si ive been in school for three weeks which is about what it was and i said you know im undecided here at ohio state did when i look at that lady that would let me in and i look at the carpeting in the lighting in the furniture and staff im sort of thinking this is the job for me. What exactly do you do . So he tells me about his fundraising responsibility and his academic responsibility and he tells me the next day he was going to fly to washington and have a meeting with president nixon because they had become friendly. I said sir there are a number of things that i would like to talk to him about also but i said can i go with you . He said no you cant and i said if i ride a letter would you give it to the president. He had never seen me before so you ask i dont know whats going to happen to this letter but have the president of the university during a letter to the president of the United States. I wrote it in my dorm room and i basically told them how i thought he washa doing and sincerely jon kasich and asked if he wanted to discuss it further let me know. Im a College Student and i will come and see you. How a couple of weeks later i go down to my mailbox and theres a letter from the White House Office of the president and i opened it up and i go upstairs and i called home to pittsburgh. My mother answered the phone and i said mom im going to need an airline ticket. The president of the United States is going to want to have a meeting with me in the oval office. My mother is shoving pick up the phone something is really wrong with wrong with johnny. My parents thought it was ridiculous. So they talked about it and we discussed it and i finally got me a ticket to go down and i flew down to washington. I pulled up at the white house gate and theres a guy there and i had brought my father. It left my speech somewhere. He said your name again . Jon kasich and he goes come on and. So i walk in to the white house and im sitting on a settee right outside of the oval office. I have been there many times since that time but at the time im sitting right there in that chair or that little settee and the guy at the oval office is right there in a guy walks up to me and he says he says young man you were going to get five minutes alone with the president of the United States that is 1818 years old and im a firstquarter freshmen. What do you think . Do you think thats pretty good . Let me tell you what im thinking. A new jacket, tie, shirt and pants i didnt come all this way for five lousy minutes. And i was serious. So they open up the door and the president t says jon kasich the president of the United States and we shake hands in the oval office i satof down at his desk and the good news is theres an 18yearold firstquarter ohio state freshman. I spent 20 minutes alone with the president of the United States. The bad news is i spent 18 years in congress and if you add up all the time i spent in the oval office ip dowd at the age of 18. [laughter] i should have transferred to miami. Thats what i should have done. So we dont have a lot of students here tonight but at schools around the country tell that story and everybody whos here youd never know whats going to happen. You never know what is going to come around and affect somebody so you have to think big and dream big. A couple of other stories that id like to tell you. When i graduated from ohio state i graduated in december. I went looking for a job in downtown columbus. Nobody would hire me. I looked and i saw the statehouse and i thought that would do the last place that anybody would hire me because i didnt know anybody predicted single relative in ohio. You hear about politics youve got to know somebody to get an. But i didnt have anywhere else to go so i walked in there and there was a guy and ive used his name three times in last month. I saw him and i said im looking for a job and id like to use my brain until i can go to law school and he says to me i will hireth you. I said you will . Yeah i will. What am ila going to do . You will ride resolutions like winning gertrude turns a 102. I said i can do that so he set come on and. A thursday but i went in on a monday and he said something is changed. He said there is an Internship Program and it wasnt just a little tiny internship. It was like working for the senators and their roll me a few people that were going to be hired for this so i went up for this interview in the asked me why i should have that job. I will explain to you in a few minutes but i had spent a little bit of time in washington in the summer and i told him i basically ran the city of washington. I was in charge and they found that amusing and they hired me. So ici went to work for all the senators republican, that was the opening and i went to work for a guy who many of you remember and his name was buzz luken. He was one of the perth people i worked for. Bob leonard is with me tonight and we all worked for several but that was my primary guy. He was very close to ronald reagan, very close hand when reagan was running in 1976 against gerald ford in the primary he got recruited to go out and be part of this top upperlevel people trying to get reagan to win the convention so he was out there in kansas city and he called me and he says i cant handle my work load. We are trying to get all these delegates for reagan over ford. He said you need to come out here so i flew out to kansas city and i make my way to this trailer. This trailerrk has a reagan bran trust. There is a Campaign Manager and head of Public Relations and people who were in charge of various states and ith walked in the door and they looked at me and i was 23 or 24 years old. They say oh we are glad you are here. Im like i wonder why that is. They said someone was supposed to come and handle five states for governor reagan and he didnt come. H we have an opening. You think you can handle five states for governor reagan . I had no idea what that meant and i said absolutely i can get the job done. They gave me north dakota south dakota minnesota and they gave me i was. I spent a year in iowa one week in another state that i cant remember which one it was in my job was to go with governor reagan in the car to brief him about what i thought would get the vote from these different delegations and we ride over there and i would introduce him and the get back in the car and we would drive back. Can you imagine that . The w convention and ronald rean did notot win but on the top flr of the hotel he gathered his closest advisers and little old forest Gump Jon Kasich was standing in the back of the room. I watched him as reagan said we may have lost the battle but we have not lost the floor. He made a beautiful talk about these men and some women had tears streaming down their faces. It was a remarkable experience and it gave me insight to a lot of things. Lightning struck and it has for most of my lifetime. One other story i want to tell you. When i got done with the white house thing i applied for a job working in the white house and they wouldnt get many job. I wrote all these congressmen and none of them would even answer my letter but i was looking for somed summer jobs. Out of the blue they called me up and they said you cant have a job working in the white house but you can get a job working at the National Library of Medicine National institutes of health. I had no idea what the National Library was. I said im in. I got on a Greyhound Bus from ohio state drove to washington slept on a cot in a Fraternity House put my clothing in a broom closet and went to work at the National Library that was a great experience. However every weekend i would hitchhike down to the beach with my pals and one weekend we were hitchhiking and this guy comes by picks us up in this big blue cadillac. We piled in the car and we drive down to maryland to one of the beaches down there and i get talking to him and he tells me that he worked for jon f. Kennedy and he was very close to kennedy to the point where he had one of the special pt 109. If you were to try to sell when you would get a lot. A lady shaking her head. Very few people have them so i was fascinated. He worked for Lyndon Johnson and i said this is great. I asked if we could go to lunch and he j said sure. I go down to washington to meet him for lunch and come back the nexto week and he takes me to this restaurant. We get into the restaurant and i look at the menu and i said sir, i thought maybe were going to go to mcdonalds. I cant buy this. I dont have enough money to pay for this lunch and he laughed and he said dont worry i will take care of it. That next summer he hired me. I got m to meet all of the top Democratic Leaders inside the Democratic National party. It was a wonderful experience because i got to meet so many people who werean in the news ad people who are doing things. When i left to make up back to ohio state and finally graduated and got into the senate i told him i t was running for the stae senate. A couple of weeks later he called me back and he said you are running as a democrat, arent you . I said sir, a republican. He said send my money back. [laughter] i hope those stories give you a sense of who i am and who your cause there are special stories that i think itd happen by accident. Here we are tonight debating and starting again on friday and the whole business of the divide we have in the country and people wringing their hands. I cant believe trump is present then you have people who say i cant believe you dont like trump and you have thanksgiving dinner and you hold your breath going to have a fight right out of the dinner table. I actually have a couple of friends who dont speak to me now because of the positions i take in politics. It will heal. It has to heal that but you know whats happening . Isnt it just crazy . How did we get so wrapped around the axle that we spend all of our time fixated on someplace that is faraway . Im not going to tell you that the president ial elections dont matter. I ran for president. I know they matter. I know it matters what the president does so that election is going to be very important and some will want to participate by protesting are marching for whatever so i dont want to dismiss the importance of that but we also have these congressional legislative elections Town Council Elections and they tell you every time this is the most important election we have ever had. Faith of western civilization depends on it andci y then we he ann election and we meet the nw boss and guess what we know about the new boss . Hes the same as the old loss. And who nailed it right when they wrote that song. What i find so interesting today is how people are looking for something out here to comment and fix what we have right here. And im here to tell you tonight they aint coming. They are not coming to fix this. People want to know what do we do about all this anger this vitriol this anger in partisanshipop . Do you think somebodys going to come into fairfield and fix fix . They are not coming folks. There are a lot of reasons to be excited about that and the reason its so important and the reason why you cant be excited about this is that means that we are the ones who have the power. We are the ones who are ultimately in charge. If you think about that and i know about if you are saying it isnt true but it is true. I can prove to be the course of this talk of power comes from the bottom up, not the top down. The change comes this way, not this way but i also want to tell you that theut change come if te change happens with us and that teens week, all of us need to live life a little bigger than ourselves and we have to think about the way that we can change the world. That may go even farther to say that every Single Person in this room, every person in this room is special. Nobody has ever been like you. No one has ever been like you sir and no one will ever be like you again. I happen to believe because of that you have something special. If you have never thought about this before in here to say to you i want you to think about what makes youth special because you are. You see we are all part of the giant ozdinec at this point in time. We are all supposed to be together to do things bigger than ourselves to make this place better. Every single one of us regardless of our age you dont opt out to the lord never had a Retirement Plan for living. No one can opt out and we can all by digging down deep figure out how we can change the world. You know what a lot of people are thinking now of . Thats nice. Hes nuts. I cant change the world. Im just living in town and just a regular person and whats he talking about . When i talk to you about doing special and i talk to you about living life a little bigger than yourself that im talking to you about the meaning of life. The meaning of life. Many of you when you went to college were up at 2 00, 3 00 in the morning having an extra beer , feeling a little bit goofy and then it gets serious. In those dorm rooms you have discussions about the meaning of life. Think about it. People have discussed it forever. Plato believed in the eternal soul and there were people like gene joc russo who talked about the meaning of life and then there was the great religious leaders people like augustine, people like aquinas who all talked about the meaning of life one other thing they talked about at least plato did because he taught about the eternal nature. They had a discussion if there is a life everlasting how does what we do here affect what we do there . I would just like you think about that for a second. We talked about it in college the meaning of life. We talk about it when we very somebody we love. It gets late into the night and thats when her familys gift to be weto talk about it when we fantastic wedding and the dance and we have a great time and the brightest dancing dancih the dad and the groom is dancing with mom and then we have our drinks and then we gather. I have been there many times. You see its important for us to think about those things and its important to think. About how we might change the world. When you say little old me i want to give you a couple examples. I can give you a list from here to columbus of examples but i want to tell you about a guy who went to the school in eighth grade. He had challenges. He took up shoe shining for living. He made a shoe shine box in shop class. Lived inng pittsburgh. He quit in the eighth grade because he was challenged and one sunday he was walking with the childrens telethon in pittsburgh and he thought the idea of doing something for Childrens Hospital took over him. On monday he took his entire life savings, 800 it went to the Childrens Hospital and he tried to give his money to them. They had no idea at all what this guy was all about. They asked him, would you come to the hospital and shined shoes . He said you know im pretty busy maybe i can sit in a couple of days a week you with this 40pound shoeshine box on and go to Childrens Hospital. I went there to meet him and i would see him a couple of times. When i walked down everything that is saw in the hospital wee shoes. They were everywhere to them like water all the shoes . Well they told me that doctors who were in the operating room with the traveler has severe problem, child who you wondered if they were going to make it. They would see alpert and they wanted him to have their shoes because he spent time with him. All of a sudden he was transported to a different place and awaits us for a few minutes. The same is true with the nurses and all the staff. Theys. Wanted albert shine their shoes. He would take shoeshine money to support himself and put it in his right hand pocket and then he would take the other money and put it in his other pocket. We have now lost alpert. Hed donate over 200,000 to a fund for moms and dads who couldnt afford to pay their kids hospital bills. Did delbert change the world . I think one pair of shoes at a time and i always think about where he is now wearing a big crown. Albert i will be there before you know it. Hes just one story. Theres a little girl. Her name is flow and i was in North Carolina two days ago to speak to great group down there at davidson and they knew about hurricane florence. This girls name is florence. She was five years old and she thought that this big bad storm is going to hurt these people when she told her mother mom people arent going to like me because my name is florence and that horrible storms name is lance. I have to give 10 days to send of the people down there because they are going to be hurting. She called her 4yearold brother and talked them into pulling her bread wagon around in the neighborhood getting supplies to people hit by the storm. I talked to her mother. After a little while she had collected so many supplies. They had so much the people from the neighborhood all pitched in and a tractor trailer showed up. They brought the supplies and sent them to North Carolina. This little girl change the world. She has change some peoples worlds. I dont know what shes going to be like in 25 years old. I used to give my metal out of the state of the state address. The one i gave the youngest kid was eight years old. He lived in homeless shelters often on because his parents were drug addicts. His grandmother took him in. She found out that he loved xbox. She told him for christmas im going to buy you an xbox. He said grandma when i was in the homeless shelter that was cool. I never had my own blanket. When we just take the money for the xbox and buy some blankets and give them to people who live in a homeless shelter. What happened was everybody in the area founds out what he was doing. They have all the blankets they never needed. Because of an 8yearold boy but decided helping somebody else was moreng important than his on selfinterest. Imagine what hes going to be like a 25 years old tape in there so little girl by the name of reddit thunberg. Some of you have heard about her. But me give you my 2 cents on the environment. Ive believe god created this wonderful place to relive. He didnt create it forla us to worship. He created it for us to be managers and stewards of it. This little girl 15 years old would stand outside the parliament and she would hold aside, i care about my planet. I wish you would too. She would skip school a couple of weeks and then she decided shed rather go to school so shed show up on a friday. She started a Worldwide Movement have you heard of her, Greta Thunberg . They are paintingju a mural of r on a building in san francisco. People ive talked about her winning the nobel prize. She is now 16 years old. She did an incredible job. Then there is for basketbalbasketbal l fans you might remember a basketball player and he would and that his name. His name was kyle guy and he played for the university of virginia. They got to the semi finals of the ncaa tournament last year and theg team was trailing by o points. The clock was running out and they launched a threepoint shot and he got fouled. He was given a chance to step to the freethrow line and make three free throws. He makes the mall they win the game and if he misses two of them may lose. He steps up and he makes all three. They win the game and they go to theal finals. They went to the finals and he gets picked as the most viable player of the tournament. When they gave him his mettle with his award he said this is wonderful. This is nothing compared to what i can now do because i now have a platform. Ill tell you im going to tell people about the times that i jump in the shower after basketball practice fighting up my depression and fighting of the things that were bothering me in my life and now i could tell people its okay dont be afraid. Telling people that you know this is so important for young people today. For your grandchildren. If youve got a problem youve got to get help. Broken arm they not affix it. If you got it broken. Its harder and if we leave the broken. Alone bad things can happen. When you admit that you have a challenge what will really matter then is if you are strong you will get treatment but if you think you are strong and run away from your weakness this is the message thats going across the country today and dont you think its time for us to eliminate the stigma and invest in Mental Health and Mental Illness for her children or grandchildren and for all of us . [applause] so let me tell you one or two more. Michael phelps by the way city spent too much time looking at the bottom of the pool and not enough time getting to know people through hes fighting the issue of Mental Health. There were these two firemen and i want to bring this right to where we live. A woman had a car accident and she had her daughter. Her daughter was young and she was really shaken up. She was sitting on the grass when the police were there and the firemen were there and she wase hysterical. The firemen who must have had daughters saw her there shaking. They noticed that she was holding a bottle of nail polish. They went over to her and said would you paint our nails . And she did and they held their hands up like this. The girls were the comfort and calm. Yesterday was reading stories about what is happening in hong kong. People are being eaten. They are being put in put in prison. Some are being shot and these people who are searching for their freedom, some degree of freedom they run in and take it tear gassed and beaten and they run out and they are people who do it a variety of things were not the protesters but they will them wash the gas out of their eye. They will do things to try to comfort them. I was reading about one woman and do you know what she did . She hugged them. She hugged him. Can we hug somebody. Can we make somebody feel better do you think we can change the world to . That is really folks what it takes and there are people who are brave and people who are good role models and examples and we can all figure out what we are supposed to do. How do we do that . One is we have to slow down. Im telling you whether its ipads, whether its iphones all these apps and all that stuff and all these things that absorb our o time. We need to slow down. If you walk away from your phone for a couple of days its like a vacation. We are constantly bombarded with information. I dont know if you think about this butif when you go out for a drive to beautiful place if you drive really fast you miss everything thats there that yos are supposed to see. The same is true with life. If we can slow our lives down all of us at any age, at any age we begin to hear that little voice that talks to us that tells us what it is we are supposed to do. Secondly we have got to get out of ourur silos. Tonight we were talking to somebody at the table and im not going to say who it was. I hate cnn. Understand folks. Why is there all this fighting . Do you know why a lot of it is . The only absorb what we agree with and that may come to find about it. Im writing you are wrong. Get out of thet w silo. Sample something different. Learn new things. If you dont you are warring. You are boring. If you let your mind explore new things and im reading now about quantum physics. Why am i reading about it . I dont know anything about itt and i still dont know anything about it. I can tell you i talk to people about them know how how little i know and that may correct me. The fact is we cant just live in our own silo. When you say how can we stop all the fighting its not somebody else, its us. What are we doing and then theres thed third thing. Theres a lot more than that. We have got to consider our internal estimate that theres one other thing i think about now more than ever. We need to put ourselves in other peoples shoes. I can tell you having been the governor and i was involved in welfare reform was i was in congress. My dad carried mail onlv his ba. I believe the leftwing and rightwingng media is damaging e fact that some people need help. You take a woman with a couple of kids whose husband ran out on her who gets up at 5 00 in the morning to get their the kids ready for school to drop them off and go to work and maybe work a second job. They need some food stamps. They need to deet. I guess we could pound the table and say work harder. You put yourself in theirpu sho. I was with the lady the other day. She had been working for 15 Clothing Store and she makes 10 an hour. She is trying to take care of her grandkids and makes 10 an hour. I said why dont we get you another job . Wedeking we get you a job where they appreciate what you do. She said because i wont have any health care. Ca can you imagine for a second not having health care . Could you imagine for a second your Adult Children and their spouse without health care . Thats about asut scary as it gs to me. When we put ourselves in other peoples shoes and we stop for a second and dig about them is that the way we really are than we begin to have more compassion. We have a little less judgment. We are just a bit more considerate to others and when we do those things you know what, we get to feel good about ourselves. Im talking about living life a little bigger and sometimes that means you rub up against somebody else. People dont like change agents. They fight all the time. Greta thunberg is being demonized on line because she cares about the planet at the age of 16 but kids from parkland who said there was a young woman who said why am i thinking about preparing my will when i should be preparing my College Application . They have beenar demonized becae of their struggle and what they have experienced. It goes with the territory. Martin luther king was dumbed down. Rosa parks was belittled. Fannie kaymer was hammered. The great refusenik jewish who got out of the soviet union brutalized in the soviet gulags. Anytime if you want to change the city council if you want to change the school board if you want to changewa a stop sign inf you want to have someone in your neighborhood help you cut the grass criticism is coming. Thats okay. When the criticism comes you know that you are bringing about great change. Some are the of the people wilberforce and nelson mandela. Its unbelievable what happens and then you can find your satisfaction when you achieve something. Johnny depp come he goes into theoe hospital dressed up like a pirate hand he entertains those kids and theres a rapper by the name of drake. Drake shows up in hospital rooms and the girl of veteran she says oh my god it straight. He said you asked me to, mine here. Folks with me close by telling you about this whole business of us and politicians. I have Held Elected Office for 30 years. I was a state senator. I was a congressman and i was the governor. I know how the system works. There are a few leaders who lead regardless of what they hear but most politicians listen to us. Im going to give you a couple of examples. The civil rights movement. You think that they passed the silver light civil rights laws on their own . Martin luther king went to see jon kennedy and kennedy left the white house and said kennedy didnt care. He was really upset about it. What happened over time because of king and some of the people i mentioned people began to see we needed adjustment and the pressure came from the bottom up to them march is, the dog writings, the jailings. He didnt square with us. We wanted justice and we demand justice and the politicians ultimately after decades long struggle began to pass laws. Womens suffrage. Do you think those guys wanted to give you your power . They didnt. If you think about how long it took for women to get the right to vote and if you were an africanamerican you would wait even longer to get the right to vote. How does that happen . We demanded it from the bottom up. If we hadnt had the protest on campuses we would still be in vietnam today. Wed have some reason as to why wed still be there. It gotey ended by the students d the adults who finally said enough of this. The same is going to be true about environmental awareness. Some of that will be true about guns and let me talk about this for a second. When i was governor to try to pass this law. I want you to think about this. This law said if somebody in the workplace was a threat to fellow workers or they were a threat to citizens on the College Campus that they would be eight judicial proceeding along with maybe input from Law Enforcement and the gun would be taken away from somebody who is unstable. They could get it back whenever they were stabilized. That is going to become law. Its going to take a long time but the people are going to demand it. It only happens when it comes like this. A couple of things. Join the movement, start a movement. Give somebody a hugve. Put yourself in somebody elses shoes, have a smile on your face, be patient and get out of your silo and this is whats going to heal our country. The great news is we are in charge,t not them. We are in charge. If we come together all across theth country and i speak all across this country, people are hungry for this. They just want to know what to do. You dont have to climb mt. Everest. You dont have to be Greta Thunberg. You dont have to do all these magnificent things. Martin luther king said that he cant do great things do Little Things in a great way. Together we can end the fighting and that the terrell and we can start to do the things that we want out of our government and our community that will allow us to have a healthier and a more together nation and neighborhood and family. Thank you. U. Yo [applause] now for my next act am going to saw a lady in half. We are going to take questions in if you want to yell at me feel free. Ive been yelled at by the best of them. [applause] running for president is not like, i think it will just run for president , okay . Why dont you run for president. Why not . You dont just run for president. You have to have a campaign. You have to raise money. You have to have staff. Youu have to do have a chance o win a. When iran into 16 i thought i had a chance to win and we did very well. This time in my party the Republican Party there is not a path that is so like to tell people my wife and i used to do a lot of hiking but when you hike you see where you want to get. You are on a trail and youve got to have a path to get you up there. You try to go up there without a path and it doesnt work believe me but you never know what you might see. So you keep on the trail. You never know. There we go, yes. I have a couple of questions. First of all there to vote set may not lot to me. The first was an 84 my first reagan and the second was in the ohio primary voting for you. My question is as a longtime republican. Thank you by the way. Is a lifelong republican how are we going to move forward considering a lot of republicans let me just do a little analysis may be about both parties. Republicans right now if you look at the midterm elections and you look at the elections on tuesday where republicans were wiped out in virginia. They were wiped out in philadelphia. They lost the Governors Office in kentucky. Part of it the government the governor didnt do well. He was part of it and they lost. When you take a look at whats happening republicans increasingly do not get the votes from young people. They dont get the votes from minorities. They dont get the votes from college educated. They are getting any votes from the suburbs so if im a businessman i have a restaurant and 90 customers but i dont get young people. I dont get minorities and i dont get anybody with a college education. How is your restaurant doing . They are doing very well. The democrats on theth other had they are the leading candidate right now and ab shes not that shes elizabeth warren. She is so far to the left and i try to tell when i was on cnn i was having a robust conversation. Yesterday i was in charlotte and we wereer walking or two days ao we were walking in with out an elevator. N it was the a guy there. He was a hardworking guy. Hes got a vest and a belt and hes a bluecollar guy. If i were to say to him listen ive got a great idea. Im going to take your Health Care Way and give you a government program. I dont know if he would have let me into the elevator. Both parties are not really responding in my opinion to the issues that trump wants so much. What i was think about Department Stores if you have Department Stores and neither have people want to buy sometimes theres a Third Department store this brings up. I dont know but i know this. We have toa think of ourselvess americans before anything else but i have people come up to me and it happens every day who say im a democrat and i like you. I said why dont we leave out im a democrat in what you just say you like me . We dont need to be thinking about all this partisan stuff. I also have an altercation to make and that is their parents had to leave us with two things our religion and our party identification. We are willing to give up for religion before political affiliation. We may be heading to post Party Opportunity in the future and what do people care about . They care about their jobs and their wages and they care about the fact that in this world of changing technology a i Artificial Intelligence am i going to have my job and whats going to become of me . I wan to tell you this about health care. For me and my family i have twin daughters a wife and little old me and it costs me 30,000 a year for health care. 30,000 a year. For my daughter and my wife they have a 5000dollar copay or deductible. Its possible its going to cost 45,000 for us to tell me whos happy with that. Raise your hand. This issue must be addressed because we cannot bankrupt people who work a lifetime to get somewhere and then all of a sudden they get bankrupted or put back soen far because they t sick. That issue needs to be addressed. I want my kids to go to college. How are we going to afford back . How are we going to do that . These are the table issues that i think matter to people and the party that can address it will be the party that will thrive in the party theyse cant address them in my opinion will be left behind. I dont know where we are going to go tomorrow let alone where we are going to go at the end of this next election bute we have did think about it. They have to think about it because they have toe satisfy. Im a retired high school teacher. I taught 40ta years. Im an independent voter could i would tell my students might definition of an independent voter was my 1976 ballot. In illinois i voted for jimmy carter for president and jim constand on the same ballot. Ive only voted for democratic president s twice. My question is do you think the Electoral College in this 21st century, theres a purpose . I think they wouldnt have russian bots and gerrymandering and all of that if we had one person, one vote for an Electoral College. [applause] that heres the problem. And i dont favor that and i will tell you why. I dont want california and new york to decide the presidency. He raises a legitimate point. I respect him. The guy taught government in history for 40 years. Are we going to say he doesnt know what his talk about x. He does. I think the s founders decided this tiny little dates need to matter as much is the big states so you get texas to get california get new york and illinois. I cant prove it to you here but if we did it that way candidates would never go to the small states. I think he raises another good point and that is i think one of the biggest problems in a couple of big problems. One is the problem of gerrymandering. Remember you studied that and the only thing you remember from the ninth grade. Pager this really weird looking district. We are changing that in ohio. If you do that people will run in the district were only a rep republican ran andbl they can rn in a democratic district were only democrat could win. So if you are a republican you have to watch your right flank because if you go soft or you compromise they are coming at you from the rightht and if you are a democrat right now this lady up in new york is trying to run for the primary against democrats. They have to watch their left and what that does it separates us. The days when i was in congress it wasnt like this the way it is now. What you have to do is to do something so that districts are drawn more fairly good what we have done in ohio is to say you congressional map or a legislative map where you dont have the minority agreeing to it. I dont think it will solve it but it will help it evolve away. What happens is the loud voices on both sides push everybody out here. You i have aell different view than a lot of people about debates. These debates are crazy. I was in a lot of them. Maybe you never saw me. First of all they didnt know my name. It was governor ofer ohio. Governor of ohio, hi. And it got better the longer i hung in there but what happens with the debate if you have to figure out how to Say Something to get everybodys attention its hyperbole. But they ask you this. Do you think that we should put the leader of our country on the is the most clever . I know i dont want to pick a doctor that way. I want to pick a doctor somebody whose fancy. I want boring. The president ial debates are different. You get two or three of them and those are fine but the way i believe it ought to work and people probably arent going to watch. The way to do it is you get this person right here shes a tough lady. You let her stay with me and ask questions for 30 minutes onn National Television and youll get a sense of who i am. The way we do it now gets to hollywood and we are cheating ourselves. I would suggest that come up with another way of doing this. The problem is you say the audience they are getting for these debates are not veryt bi. Back in the day we were getting 30 Million People to watch. People are kind of getting tired of us but we need to better ways to pick a president and folks i believe that as human beings individuals we are centerright, centerleft. We are in the middle. That doesnt mean we shouldnt have firebrands but we as a people are more comfortable with somebody a reformer but someone who is not out here wild. Thats what we need more of in our big National Leaders and by the way big National Leaders who were not read or not live at red white and blue. Ive nevere understood all thee people yelling and screaming and one other thing i want to tell you, last one. You see there are people who have leadership decisions. They are like chairman of the intelligence committee, senior minority and youve got the speaker of the house. Youve got chairman. I was chairman of the budget committee. They need to police their members. When their members start to see to be rude to people in the other party that got to shut them up. Right now there is not much effect. I remember watching, think i was watching when bill clinton or somebody was making a speech and a guyf who was there at the ste of the union yelled you lie. Than he put out a fundraising letter the next day to raise money. If i had n been there i would he called mrs. Bishop and. We would have had a talk into that guy and it would have been. We need more of that more adult supervision among the politicians. I will take a couple more. How are we doing on time . You are to got your say. We are going to this gentleman back here. At think we have time for one more question. I actually have a question here. If its a a quick question i thk we have time. That lady in the gentleman and well wrap it up. Whats the score of the Football Game . Does anybody know . Will find outoe tomorrow. How can a person in the middle get elected in this environment . You know what there is a certain magic. First of all if you want to run for president i believe that you can be sensible and you can be someone that is a Problem Solver but yet interesting. If you are boring you are going nowhere if youre running for president. But if youre in the middle you are going to be fine. When it comes to Congressional Elections though some have anything to do with all of these issues. They really have it do with a projected sense if i can represent you. In high school you didnt vote for somebody on the basis of their resume or on the basis of you voted for them on the basis that you think this person can be a leader. When politicians say to me i can do that because people will be mad. Its like you walk a a lonely road. You cant listen to the voices that yell at you. I can tell you this. One day they love you. The next day they hate you and the next day they love you. If youre looking to be loved by a dog. Dont go into politics. I think it is possible but you make a very good point. Youve got tont have a certain edge for a certain magic to you when you climb up that high but i also believe today people are getting tired of all this. They are getting tired of all this yelling and screaming and disruption. We want to be betterd and happr thats just my view but i will tell you this if i ever ran again i would never remember in those debates i never attacked anybody personally. I never did anything that i thought belittled me are political the state of ohio was because i was governor at the time. If you dont win, fine. Life goes on. Life goes on so be proud of who you are and look at yourself in the mirror. That may close by saying this. You gave me eight years to be the governor. My philosophy was dont leaveig anybody behind. Make sure the people that live in the shadows are not in north. I think we have a healthier and happier state and i think its going to continue under a new governor. I want to thank you for those elections but i want to thank you for, when i ran for president i won ohio and you stood up for me so thank you all very much. God bless you. Zero. [applause] c thank you