HERSHEY, Pa. — Flanked by vintage buses and a preserved vintage soda counter at a Pennsylvania antique car museum, Ohio Gov. John Kasich presented himself as, well, your grandfather's Republican president.
In a campaign season that has been dominated by unorthodox politicians like businessman Donald Trump, Mr. Kasich offered a familiar, even nostalgic, Republican platform.
"There's three things that matter, I learned this in McKees Rocks," said Mr. Kasich, referring to his working-class upbringing just outside Pittsburgh. "It's jobs, jobs, jobs" -- and creating them, he told an audience of more than 500 at Hershey's Antique Automobile Association, required a familiar recipe of cutting business regulations, lowering taxes, and reining in federal budget deficits.
Such time-honored principles are a key selling point for Mr. Kasich's supporters, along with his resistance to bombast and polling showing that he would beat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup.
"John Kasich will lead in a very traditional way," said Lehigh Valley Congressman Charlie Dent, who introduced Mr. Kasich. He called Mr. Kasich a "common-sense conservative," who preferred "incremental progress" and "measured statements" delivered in a Pittsburgh accent.
"You know how they talk," Mr. Dent said of Steel City residents.
Mr. Kasich's affable, if somewhat hokey, persona was on display from the outset, when he pulled an April Fool's Day prank by warning of a coming winter storm. (It's unclear if anyone was fooled.) And he spoke about his upbringing in a town that was "all blue-collar, all conservative, all God-fearing." Many of its residents, he said, could have been Trump supporters because "it was a place where you play by the rules [but] you can sometimes get the shaft."
"I understand that anxiety because I grew up with that anxiety."
But he faulted his rivals, Mr. Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for playing to people's fears, especially on matters like terrorism. Their proposals to police Muslim neighborhoods or bar Muslim immigrants, he said, "sounds good to some people." But it risked alienating Muslims whose help the war on terror requires.
"If you want to find out what is going on in the Muslim community, who is being radicalized, who do you ask?"
The fight against terrorism "can be won, not by splitting people apart, but by bringing people together," he said.
He had a similarly conciliatory policy on immigration, saying that while "none of us like the fact that people came here illegally," it was unrealistic to talk about deporting the 11 million undocumented workers estimated to be here already. If longtime immigrants have committed no crimes, he said, they should be able to remain after paying back taxes and a penalty.
"I could walk into this room and I could tell you how horrible everything is," he said. "Or I could choose to ... tell you that there are solutions."
Mr. Kasich took several questions from the crowd, including one querying his prospects for being the Republican nominee. Having been a dark-horse candidate for much of the primary season, it is mathematically impossible for Mr. Kasich to win a majority of Republican delegates. His hopes are pinned on those delegates swinging to his side during a contested convention in Cleveland this summer.
"I live in a bubble," he said of the media coverage he'd received. "There's Coke, there's Pepsi, and there's Kasich. ... The reason you haven't heard enough about me is because I made a commitment to everybody that I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land."
But he said that "nobody is going to have enough delegates going to that convention." He said "delegates are very serious people" who would get transformed from party activists to people who have to consider two things: who can win [and] who can be commander in chief."
The convention, he predicted, would be "really, really cool."
Picking up on that theme with reporters afterward, Mr. Kasich said that of the Republican Party's 10 contested conventions, the front-runner going into the convention had won only three times.
Reporters questioned Mr. Kasich about a TV ad, aired by an independent committee that supports his candidacy, attacking Mr. Cruz as "Lying Ted" -- a sobriquet first bestowed by Mr. Trump. Mr. Kasich noted that he had no control over such ads, but said, "I told my people to communicate that I'm very unhappy with" the word "lying."
"You all like this stuff," he told reporters. "I want to talk about creating jobs."
Indeed, many of Mr. Kasich's supporters say that's a big part of his appeal. Some lamented that the GOP primary has been only the latest symptom of a party that seems divided against itself, and opposed to everyone else.
Phillip Schonour, a retired banker from Millersville, said that the party had become too ideologically rigid to address the country's needs. Mr. Kasich, he "has the experience and the well-rounded approach to deal with a lot of our problems. ... And I don't feel with the two front-runners we have that they are going to present the kind of leadership we need."
Mr. Schonour said he was "disappointed" that Mr. Kasich hadn't broken out of a Republican field that once numbered 17 candidates. "But I'm optimistic that this is going to get to the convention floor, and people will see what kind of leader he is by the second or third vote."
Some observers warn that a contested convention risked dividing the party even further, but Mr. Schonour said the process might be necessary. "We probably do need to clear up a lot of varying views within the party."
It remains to be seen whether such a process would yield Mr. Kasich as the nominee. Thus far, Mr. Cruz has crowded out Mr. Kasich for the party's No. 2 spot nationally. But Mr. Kasich represents the far greater threat in Pennsylvania, said James Bruno, a 23-year-old Trump supporter.
"I don't think Cruz has any shot," said Mr. Bruno, who came from Harrsiburg to see Mr. Kasich because, "It's always interesting to see what these things are like."
Mr. Cruz's stridently evangelical brand of conservativism was a bad fit in Pennsylvania, he said.
"We had one of those guys: [former Senator] Rick Santorum. And he got smoked in 2006."
Chris Potter: cpotter@post-gazette.com.
First Published: April 1, 2016, 4:41 p.m.
