The only positive thing about John Kasich’s entrance into the race is that is siphons votes away from Jeb Bush. Other than that he is a GOP candidate in step with the party of 20 years ago but drastically out of step with today’s GOP electorate. And as much as his campaign manager, Democrat operative, [mc_name name=’Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000303′ ] svengali and 2012 Jon Huntsman campaign manager, John Weaver wishes to believe otherwise, he has to win GOP primaries to win the nomination. This, you may recall, was the same problem [mc_name name=’Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000303′ ] had in 2000 and Jon Huntsman had in 2012.

Today in New Hampshire, even as a new video from Center for Medical Progress was circulating which described cutting open the face of a still living baby to extract its brain, John Kasich had this to say about abortion:

“I would like to ask whether you can respect the Roe versus Wade decision, and I ask because as a lifelong libertarian, I’m looking for a candidate to support who is both a fiscal conservative and not a threat to a woman’s right to control her own body,” said a voter at a town hall event in Salem, New Hampshire.

“Obviously, it’s the law of the land now, and we live with the law of the land,” Kasich replied.

The full answer is a bit more expansive, he added: “It’s the law of the land until it changes.”

This is straight out of the John Weaver play book. Via CNN:

“I think (abortion) is an important issue, but I think there’s many other issues that are really critical. Early childhood. Infant mortality. The environment. Education,” he said. “I think we focus too much on just one issue, and now that the issue of gay marriage is kind of off the table, we’re kind of down to one social issue.”

It makes you wonder what kind of a dunderhead could place the environment and education above the life of a child.

But back to his answer, or non-answer as it really was. Kasich wants you to think he’s pro-life but he only does the easy pro-life things. When it comes time to actually take a stand on the subject he waffles. Without being belligerent, he could have told the nice pro-abort that abortion doesn’t involve a woman controlling her own body… she had the chance to do that when she got pregnant… as much as it has to do with her right to arbitrarily kill an inconvenient child.

He could have pointed out that Dred Scott and Plessy were also the law of the land but they were morally abhorrent and we changed them. He could have said he would do everything within his power to roll back abortion and would challenge Roe as a cruel monument to a tiny intellect that tried to play God.

But he didn’t. Because  “we are down to one social issue” and he is not going to fight on it.