john kasich was killing it with these iowa voters.









he bantered with larry, a coralville voter, about the university of iowa's hot hoops team. iowa had better take advantage<u+00a0>of ohio state university, he said.<u+00a0>"our basketball team is down this year."









kasich<u+2019>s signature down-home small talk over, larry asked the republican presidential candidate if he supports<u+00a0>the renewable fuel standard<u+2019>s<u+00a0>requirement that gas contain a certain amount of<u+00a0>ethanol, much of it made from iowa corn.<u+00a0>kasich supports the existing law.









<u+201c>you keep going,<u+201d> larry told kasich, calling him "johnny."<u+00a0><u+201c>if you<u+2019>re ever in the great state of iowa and you<u+2019>re close, we<u+2019>ll come and wave to ya.<u+201d>









that<u+2019>s right: kasich was talking to larry, and more than 12,000 other iowa voters, in a telephone town-hall meeting thursday night. kasich<u+00a0>was calling from the other early-voting state: new hampshire.









kasich is polling at<u+00a0>just less than 3% in iowa<u+00a0>ahead of the feb. 1 caucuses, putting him in ninth, according to the realclearpolitics rolling average of recent polls. talk among the kasich team of a<u+00a0>possible top-five finish<u+00a0>has faded.









while other candidates have swarmed iowa this month, kasich has appeared just twice:<u+00a0>jan. 4 in west des moines<u+00a0>and jan. 10 in council bluffs. he plans iowa visits this week in the quad cities, des moines and cedar rapids, but he's not scheduled to be<u+00a0>in iowa on caucus day.









instead, he<u+2019>s taking his town-hall game in person to new hampshire. ahead of the feb. 9 primary, he's in a tight battle with texas sen. ted cruz and florida sen. marco rubio for second place. finishing just behind<u+00a0>poll-leading donald trump, he hopes, could<u+00a0>propel him to prominence among establishment republicans leery of trump and cruz, who are<u+00a0>topping national surveys.









his approach, kasich and his advisers say, has its roots in reality: it<u+2019>s next to impossible to win both contests, so they're<u+00a0>focusing on the state where they have the best shot. the same candidate has won both the iowa caucus and the new hampshire primary only once in the last seven contested gop elections: 1976, the first year iowa republicans kicked off the nation<u+2019>s voting.









<u+201c>i wish i had more time for iowa,<u+201d> kasich said in an interview wednesday on his campaign bus in new hampshire. <u+201c>when we go, we get such good response, so it<u+2019>s tempting to keep going back. it<u+2019>s time management. it<u+2019>s nothing against the folks in iowa.<u+201d>









the iowa tele-town halls <u+2014> kasich has held three <u+2014> have helped some. on thursday night, people dropped in and out of<u+00a0>the conversation, with as many as 4,375 participants at any time, data<u+00a0>from the vendor show. the average participant spent a whopping 32 minutes on the hour-long call, up from 15 minutes and eight minutes in the previous calls. some iowans, at least, are interested in kasich.









he told participants on the phone call that he<u+2019>d appreciate any boost he can get from their caucus votes.









what about caucusgoers who worry about <u+201c>throwing away<u+201d> their votes on a low-polling candidate?









<u+201c>i vote for the person that i like. i don<u+2019>t worry about throwing away my vote. i vote for the person who can do a good job,<u+201d> kasich said in the interview.









in the tele-town halls, iowans get a taste of the same kasich they<u+2019>d see in person <u+2014> minus the teal puffy coat he<u+2019>s been wearing this winter,<u+00a0>the national debt ticker<u+00a0>that decorates his town-hall meetings and the blue bus carting him through the new hampshire snow.









with kasich, voters get an hour of folksy explanations of complicated policies, plus exhortations to take care of each other, seek a personal purpose, become part of something bigger than themselves.









he also makes jokes that make fun of audience members, or himself, or the presidential process. he drops names. (he<u+2019>s friends with john mccain,<u+00a0>who twice won the new hampshire primaries. he got leonardo dicaprio<u+2019>s autograph for his daughters at a restaurant this month.)









he sometimes interrupts questioners or finishes their queries for them.









<u+201c>my mind works very fast, you know, and there<u+2019>s things that they say that trigger something that i can<u+2019>t wait to tell them,<u+201d> he said in the interview. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m really not trying to cut anybody off, and i<u+2019>m certainly not trying to show them any disrespect, but <u+2014> can<u+2019>t we just kind of get to it? i<u+2019>m just bursting to tell them.<u+201d>









rushad thomas walked right into a kasich joke monday night at a town hall in lebanon, new hampshire.









<u+201c>i think<u+00a0>immigration<u+00a0>is a good thing, because our population is getting very old-people heavy,<u+201d> thomas, 26, said to the audience,<u+00a0>which was also very <u+201c>old-people heavy,<u+201d> since the event was at a senior center.









then, thomas launched into his question:









kasich almost never travels with his wife, karen, and 16-year-old twin daughters, reese and emma. he says he wants to be careful how much exposure the twins receive.









and although he has women working on his campaign <u+2014> his campaign manager is beth hansen, his former gubernatorial chief of staff <u+2014> his traveling staff and advisers are all men.









<u+201c>sometimes this bus is like being in a fraternity house, you know?<u+201d> kasich said in the interview. <u+201c>i would rather have a situation where we could bring more women in, but on this bus, it<u+2019>s just guys, you know? it<u+2019>s not ideal. but there<u+2019>s only a couple of people that i talk to really, really seriously, and beth is one of them.<u+201d>









kasich<u+2019>s family joined him monday and tuesday in new hampshire. his daughters told voters kasich was the most loving, caring and experienced gop candidate <u+2014> and <u+201c>the only one i<u+2019>d feel comfortable with,<u+201d> reese said.









once, in lebanon, kasich teased reese for wanting to attend college at an art school in london.









<u+201c>what kind of school is that?<u+201d> he said, to chuckles. after some back and forth, she finally agreed to give him a hug. <u+201c>if i was making fun of you, i<u+2019>m sorry,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>but i wasn<u+2019>t. we all need to laugh at ourselves.<u+201d>









it wasn<u+2019>t his finest parenting moment. so he did what parents do. <u+201c>she didn<u+2019>t like that, and i actually had to apologize to her,<u+201d> he said in the interview.









without his daughters on the campaign trail, kasich lights up whenever he sees a child. he read a thomas the tank engine<u+00a0>book to a family of toddlers in the middle of a town-hall meeting, asking the children what noise a cow makes.









<u+201c>you said it like a goat!<u+201d> a voter shouted.









new hampshire voters who see kasich often say they believe he<u+2019>ll <u+201c>get things done<u+201d> in washington, d.c. they cite his down-home style and his blue-collar upbringing.









<u+201c>i know he<u+2019>s not in the top three<u+201d> nationally, said paul plater, a 67-year-old from hillsboro who is retired from the army corps of engineers. <u+201c>he<u+2019>d get my vote. he<u+2019>s going to be up there in the top three by the end.<u+201d>









on the tele-town hall thursday, political director jeff polesovsky asked the iowa callers: would you consider caucusing for kasich?









press 1,<u+00a0>he said, if he<u+2019>s your first choice. press 2<u+00a0>to say<u+00a0>i<u+2019>m considering him. press 3<u+00a0>for no. press 4 if you<u+2019>re undecided.









<u+201c>how about 5 for: <u+2018>what, are you out of your mind?<u+2019> <u+201d> kasich cracked. <u+201c>you gotta have a little fun, folks. everything is not a root canal!<u+201d>
john kasich wooing iowans mostly from new hampshire
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