Scant days after he was identified as a recruitment target of Mitt Romney’s motley crew of dead-enders, Ohio Governor John Kasich said thanks but no thanks. The mysterious Mr. Kasich has “rule out” being the chosen one to sink Donald Trump and turn the keys to the White House over to Queen Hillary, a serious setback for efforts to come up with an alternative who has national name recognition. It may be that Romney the gutless wonder will just have have to do it himself despite the black eye of the appearance of not wanting to compete for the GOP nomination with 17 others when he had the chance instead of leading a renegade rat pack because they have no respect for the will of the people.

The Washington Post reports “Kasich rules out ‘Stop Trump’ third-party bid”:

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), whose named has been bandied about by the Republicans looking for a third-party “Stop Donald Trump” candidate for president, told CNN that he had already ruled it out.

“I’ve had a phone call with somebody that wanted me to run, consider running as a third-party candidate,” Kasich said. “I’m not gonna do that… I just think running third party doesn’t feel right. I think it’s not constructive.”

Kasich, the last Trump rival to exit the 2016 primaries, had been contacted by Mitt Romney and other would-be eminence grises who are trying — with no success thus far — to put a new candidate on the ballot and spare conservatives from backing the Republican ticket.

Kasich’s name came up in a Washington Post story over the weekend that a cabal led by Romney and neocon little lord Fauntleroy William Kristol were beating the bushes to field an alternative to Trump in the general election. Others involved were Romney-linked consultants who have been wrong about everything so far in this election cycle as well as ambitious Red State founder Erick Erickson.
The Romney group also reportedly reached out to retired military general Stanley McChrystal, Bush regime figure Condoleezza Rice and Mark Cuban, the wealthy NBA owner and a host on ABC’s smash reality TV show Shark Tank.

Kasich is also refusing to endorse Trump – something that would remove any leverage that he may have at the July convention in his state – and has ruled out serving as his vice president although like Marco the plastic Cuban he was never asked. The remarks came during an interview with the insipid intrepid CNN celebrity McNewsman Anderson Cooper.

CNN reports that Kasich: “I’m not endorsing Trump (yet) — or serving as his VP”:

John Kasich signaled Monday that he still harbors deep uneasiness with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, declining to endorse him and reiterating that he will not serve as Trump’s vice president.

Even now that he’s left the race, Kasich is resisting calls to serve as Trump’s No. 2, portraying his pitch and Trump’s as fundamentally incompatible. Kasich said he was “not inclined” to run with Trump and that he had “not changed my mind.”

“Those are two very inconsistent messages, so it would be very hard for me — unless he were to change all of his views and become a uniter — for me to get in the middle of this thing,” the Ohio governor told

CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview, his first since leaving the race. “Because, you know, I’m undecided here about what I’m gonna do in this race.”

The continued presence of Mr. Kasich is as bizarre as the media coverage of him and it’s hard to see how he still doesn’t have a role to play in the outcome of this madness.