Stand for Something

by John Kasich

  The answer, according to Will? Perhaps, perhaps not. “But even assuming there are modern media strategies that could launch a national candidacy from the south wing of the Capitol,” Will wrote, “Kasich’s presidential plausibility will require someone to turn down the rheostat that controls, if anything does, his expressive energy.”

  Look, we all have our own gifts, and it’s imperative that we use them. I believe I have several, and one of them is to speak out. Usually, I speak out against the status quo on behalf of the little guy, but sometimes I get a little crazy and go off about something like this Fargo business, with no real expectation but to let off some steam. I can’t imagine it’s all that much fun to be on the receiving end of one of my tirades, but I’m here to tell you it isn’t much fun to be making the delivery either. I think back to those lonely stands I made on the Budget Committee, or fending off the B-2 bomber, and recognize that there are times when people resent my words, and my actions. But I’ve always followed my instincts, and my gut, and been true to my values. My purpose has been to influence or sometimes drive the debate, and for the most part I’ve made a good go of it.

  Now, on to the next story. With my presidential campaign in full swing, I traveled to New Hampshire to do some grassroots work, which was about all my campaign could afford. I was scheduled to visit the home of a loyal Republican woman in the Concord area, for one of those coffee-klatch, ladies-auxiliary-type sessions that are essential to this phase of presidential politics. The way it works is the candidate goes from house to house, where all these coffees and teas and meet-and-greets have been set up, and spends a couple hours talking about why he’s the greatest guy who ever lived and is therefore deserving of everyone’s support. I loved meeting all these new people, even as I hated blowing all that smoke in my own direction, but it was part of the drill. As I would learn soon enough an hour or so before I was due to arrive at this one house the hostess had backed her car out of her own driveway so it would be clear for her guests—and managed to run over the family dog in the process.

  Understandably, the woman was all shook up about the death of her dog, and in some way I guess I felt responsible. I raced over to suggest we cancel or at least postpone our session, but she felt she had too many people coming and could not cancel on such short notice. She was crying, and I sat with her and tried to comfort her, but she was determined that the event go off as planned. So it did. It was a little tense, and I caught myself worrying that some other shoe would drop to place everyone else on edge, but the afternoon went off without further incident and as the guests began to leave I stuck around for a bit to see if there was anything I could do to help. I thought the least I could do was to help with the burial. I know the accident wasn’t my fault, and that it probably wasn’t even my place to be involved at this point, but I felt strongly that I should lend a hand on this. I knew how I would have felt if my dog had just died, so I wanted to help. It was the right thing to do, so I set about it.

  By this point, the woman’s husband had returned home from work, and the two of us went out back to see about digging a hole. The man struck me as a typical New England Yankee—very practical, and matter-of-fact, with wire-rimmed glasses and a set of suspenders holding up a pair of blue-striped pants—and when I asked him where he wanted to bury the dog he just pointed to the ground at his feet and allowed that this spot was as good as any.

  I said, “You can’t bury the dog right here. You need shade. It gets hot out here in New Hampshire, in summertime.”

  He said, “Well, you have a good point.”

  And so we settled on a spot over by a big tree, and when we were through with the digging, after we had put the dog in the hole, he began to cover it back up with dirt.

  I said, “You can’t fill the hole just yet. We haven’t said a prayer.”

  He said, “Well, I guess you’re right.”

  And so he said a few prayers, along the lines of “I hope you catch all the sheep you chase up in heaven.” It was a simple sentiment, and yet as I looked over at him I could see tears rolling down his cheeks. As moments go, it was moving, and after we filled in the hole he looked like he was ready to go back inside.

  I said, “We’re not quite through. We don’t have a marker.”

  The husband said, “You’re right.” And then he disappeared into the garage and returned with a nice stone to mark the grave, and when we had finally done a respectful job of it I thanked the woman for her courage and hospitality and made to leave. Trouble was, at just that moment, I noticed a reporter still in the house. He’d been covering the campaign, and apparently he’d picked up on something and hung back to see what this extra matter was.

  On a personal level, I couldn’t abide that this was now open for public inspection, and I said as much. I walked straight over to the reporter and said, “This is a private moment here. I’m trusting you not to write about this, or to share it with anyone else. It’s hard enough on these good people to lose their dog like this, without having to read about it in the papers.”

  I wasn’t as emphatic as I might have been over that Blockbuster incident, because of course I had a campaign to run and it would not do to come across as any kind of loose cannon, but I was firm. My “expressive energy” was everywhere apparent. And, sure enough, the story never made the papers—although after a while it did start making the rounds. A couple weeks later, I got a call from my campaign office, indicating that our hostess had spoken out on the subject, and it seemed I had become known (among her circle of friends, at least), as “that man who helped to bury my dog.”

  I mention this story because that’s what it’s like to run for president—and it’s also what it’s like to do the right thing by each other. And that’s what it’s like to lead—in big ways and small, it’s much the same. I hope readers realize by now that I hate telling stories like these on myself, because I don’t want to come across as some blowhard, but I do so because they carry an important message: Even such a small kindness as helping to bury someone’s dog can go a long way toward setting America right once again.

  I’m smiling as I write this, because whenever I catch myself kicking up some dust on some new issue that has set me reeling, or ripping into some poor, unsuspecting soul like that Blockbuster clerk, I catch myself thinking, Here I go again. Or, Why me? And then I think, Well, why not me? Remember, it’s on each of us, to do what we can, and for good or ill this is what I do. Standing alone is never easy, but if your words create an impact you can build a team for positive change.

  But that’s me. What about you?

  If you’re a doctor, do you make house calls in the middle of the night when you’re bone tired and looking to 7:00 A.M. rounds at the hospital the next morning?

  If you’re an airline ticketing agent, do you stay late to book reservations for a family after their 11:00 P.M. flight is suddenly canceled?

  If you’re a teacher, do you plead for parental involvement, and go out of your way to call on parents at home?

  If you’re a carpenter, donating your services to Habitat for Humanity, will you give up another few weekends to build another house, beyond your initial commitment?

  Will you call your boss on his or her behavior that might have been out of line?

  Will you let bygones be bygones and forget an old feud?

  Will you provide health care for your employees, even if you think that doing so will wreak havoc on your budget?

  Make no mistake: It’s all a virus, and we pass it on. We can either pass on the good virus, or we can pass on the bad one, and this is where our legacies are built. Our parents did it for us, and now it’s on us to do the same for our children, to do our part to build a world they can be proud to inherit. Just like baseball players and politicians and famous entertainers are only remembered in a snapshot, that’s how the rest of us are remembered as well, and now that I’m finally a father myself I’ve begun to watchdog myself in this area, to redouble my efforts to make good and lasting
decisions, which might in turn lead to a good and lasting impression.

  THE POWER TO LEAD

  It’s the little things, the seeing-eye singles, that will take us where we want to go. We make great strides with small steps. Do I get it right, each and every time out of the gate? Not even close. I’m endlessly frustrated that I don’t do enough with my time on this earth. That I sometimes fail. That I feel envy, and jealousy, and all those negative emotions. That I can’t always find the time to be fully in the moment with my daughters. That I’m not always so quick to grant someone the benefit of the doubt, and sometimes a little too quick to judge. But then I catch myself and realize it’s like I’m still a little kid, back in McKees Rocks, playing ball. I fall down, and I get dirty, but I get right back up and dust myself off and mean to do a better job of it the next time.

  That’s the bottom line of it right there, the meaning to do a better job of it the next time, because that covers just about everything. Honesty. Integrity. Personal responsibility. Faith. Humility. Accountability. All those good things I wrote about earlier . . . they’re all tied together, don’t you think? And they all reach back to the values that shaped us as children—values that whether we care to admit it continue to shape our communities and our future.

  Be mindful. Be vigilant. Demand better—of one another, and of ourselves. These are our marching orders. Go ahead and tell the guy at the video store to do a better job labeling his titles so people can have some idea what they’re taking home . . .

  Go ahead and lend a hand to your neighbor in distress—or even to a stranger whose path you just happened to cross . . .

  Go ahead and tell your kid you won’t buy him that Randy Moss jersey, because Randy Moss represents everything that’s crass and off-putting about professional sports . . .

  Go ahead and turn off MTV when The Osbournes comes on, and refuse to celebrate the drug-filled lifestyle it depicts . . .

  Go ahead and talk about an outrage or an injustice over the water cooler at work, because if we’re afraid to call attention to the elephant in the room the elephant will hold sway . . .

  Go ahead and share your gifts with the world around you, even if those gifts have nothing to do with what you do for a living . . .

  Go ahead and do what you can, where you can, whenever you can—because that’s leadership, and it’s in the doing, the taking care.

  Case in point: I have a friend who has “adopted” a lonely old man he chanced upon a couple years back. The poor guy has bad teeth, and so my friend takes him to the dentist, and makes sure he follows through on his treatment, and even picks up a bill now and then. Why? Because he can, I guess. And because he must.

  Another case in point: There’s a teacher in another friend’s school district who arrives at her desk every single morning an hour and a half before the morning bell, a full hour earlier than she’s meant to arrive according to her teacher’s union contract. Why? Because she’s found over the years that kids are more likely to reach out to her for extra help—with school or with anything else—if they don’t have to schedule an appointment to do so, and that it’s a liberating thing for students to know she is always there. Also, because she can, because she must.

  People ask me all the time, if I feel so strongly about these societal issues, why I don’t consider returning to politics. But I maintain that politics is not the only arena where change happens, or where values count. I left it all on the field when I retired from Congress. Is there a chance I’d go back? Of course there is, but right now I’m trying to figure out what I can do in the world where I live. I don’t need to be in politics to bring about change. I don’t need to be in the public eye. In the private sector, I can work quietly to ensure that these values are at least upheld in my corner of the business world. And let’s not lose sight of the fact that my father was a mailman. My grandparents hardly spoke any English. They could never have conceived of me writing a book, sounding an all-important message that might resonate across this land. And yet here I am, putting the final touches to just such a book—speaking out, yet again!—and if I can do it, you can, too.

  Somebody is always watching. It’s bigger than the mommy-cam and daddy-cam notions I’ve been kicking around in these pages. It’s a people-cam, and there’s one mounted in every room, on every corner, and atop every building, and last I checked there’s no off button. If you’re a boss, the people who work for you are watching you at every turn. They’re looking on at how you treat your employees, how you accommodate their family emergencies and financial hardships, how you reward their loyalty. If you’re a doctor, your patients know what it means to be in your care. If you’re a veteran athlete, your younger teammates are looking down to see what you’re doing at your locker, and looking to carry themselves in some version of the same way. If you’re a teacher, your colleagues are looking to follow your lead, just as your students are taking cues from how you conduct yourself in moments of stress or conflict. And if you’re a parent, your children are watching. At all times.

  Everyone is a leader to someone else. Remember it, and do your part, and know that when your time is up you’ll have made a contribution on the strength of your leadership. I’m like everyone else when it comes to building a legacy. I want to be remembered for the good that I’ve done, and not so much for the mistakes I made along the way. I want to know that when it comes time to sit through the movie of my life, in that big multiplex in the sky, I’ll be able to answer for my actions. I’ll be sitting there, with the Big Guy right next to me, a jumbo tub of popcorn between us and a bottled water fitted into the cup holder in the seat back in front of me, and I’d just as soon have it be a pleasant viewing experience as not. Really, if I’m up there with Him, I don’t want to have to be looking away from the screen three-quarters of the way through the movie of my life, and so I aim to get it right. Can we get it right each and every time? Absolutely not. We’re not perfect. But we can aim to try.

  This last is the bottom line, wouldn’t you agree? Make the effort. Be counted. Believe in a greater good. Act. Think in the back of your mind about the footprints you want to leave behind, and then set about making them, because let’s face it, the way we live and the choices we make add up to our shared legacy. Stand for something, and those footprints will take care of themselves.