LANSING, Mich. – Marco Rubio isn’t the only presidential candidate that former Gov. Mitt Romney is recording anti-Donald Trump robocalls on behalf of.
The 2012 GOP presidential nominee also recorded robocalls on behalf of John Kasich’s campaign in Michigan. But Kasich distanced himself from the message of the calls Tuesday afternoon.
Mitt Romney recorded robocalls, paid for by John Kasich’s campaign, that do not explicitly ask voters to cast their ballot for a particular candidate. But Romney starkly warns people not to vote for Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
“These are critical times that demand a serious, thoughtful commander-in-chief,” Romney says on the call. “If we Republicans were to choose Donald Trump as our nominee, our is prospects for a safe and prosperous future would be greatly diminished and I’m convinced Donald Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton. Please vote today for a candidate who can defeat Hillary Clinton and who can make us proud.”
Kasich regularly boasts about running a positive campaign and how he does not go on the attack against other candidates, and when asked whether he supports what Romney says on the calls, he told reporters: “The situation is, you know what I’m for. I’m for the things that I know, and I have done to help lift the country. Gov. Romney’s kind of recording robocalls for everyone, and I didn¹t want somebody to think that he favored one person over me, because he doesn’t. You know. It's his words, I don’t write his scripts.”
But when it was pointed out that his campaign paid for the calls, he said, “we want to make sure that people don’t think that Romney’s for somebody else and not for me, particularly in the state of Michigan. So, is this the scenario that I would have liked to have had it work out like this? Not really, but it is what it is.”
Romney has been hard-charging against Trump since last week, when he gave an extensive speech in Utah offering a blistering takedown of the real estate mogul.
Kasich wrapped his campaigning in Michigan Tuesday afternoon with a stop at the Lansing Brewing Company, rallying several hundred supporters with optimism about his finish in the state's primary on Tuesday.
“I’m trusting my eyes because I think we're on a roll,” he told the crowd. “But let us for the rest of this day leave no stone unturned, have the state of Michigan, send a message, and launch me into the state of Ohio where we will have a whole new day in American politics.”
