THE FEVER
Assistant Lampoonist
After months of campaigning with very little to show for it, presidential candidate John Kasich has revealed a new slogan for his campaign: “Wait, who?”
Like that one friend in the back seat who’s constantly trying to join the conversation, Kasich has been in the shadow of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump since election season began. While it’s not as bad as Jeb Bush’s run, at least Bush had the sense to drop out of the race.
The change in his slogan was first teased in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” with host Chuck Todd making a joke about how nobody knew about Kasich.
“Well, I mean, yeah. Nobody really does know about me. Not even you, Chuck. I had to call in myself to schedule this interview,” Kasich said bitterly. “I might as well just change my slogan to match my anonymity in this race.”
First seen as a joke, not a single one of Kasich’s 10 supporters knew he was being serious. Within two months of his interview, his slogan had officially changed from “Kasich for Us” to “Wait, who?”
“It’s the first thing people say when they hear about me, so it only feels appropriate to hone in on that,” Kasich said in a follow up interview on Meet the Press. “The media is so focused on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, that people like me don’t get heard.
“This new slogan is going to help tap into people’s curiosity. They’ll see it, and then they’ll research. They’ll learn about me, and then my group of supporters will go from 10 to 100, guaranteed,” Kasich continued.
Kasich’s theory ended up being correct. Two weeks after his slogan change, Kasich’s Twitter page blew up from 10 followers to 120 — a whopping 20 more followers than originally anticipated.
These individuals have taken it upon themselves to spread Kasich’s message to more young people, sporting shirts and pins saying things like “John who?” and “Who’s that Ohio governor that’s running for President? Yeah, vote for that guy.”
Matt Carle, Kasich’s campaign manager, quickly took credit for the success of this new slogan.
“It was all my idea. After Kasich made that joke on ‘Meet the Press,’ I knew that was the answer to bring his numbers up, and damn did it work,” Carle said in a CNN interview.
Republican rival Trump has also taken a liking to Kasich’s strategy, and has changed his slogan from “Make America Great Again” to “You know who I am.”