Ohio Gov. John Kasich talks Martians, Nixon and bipartisan politics in Sun City + video

Ohio Gov. John Kasich looked back on his decades in politics to make the case for his own political future -- and possibly a place in the White House -- before Beaufort County voters Wednesday afternoon.

The Republican's two stops were bursting at the seams with overcapacity crowds of more than 100 at Aunt Chilada's on Hilton Head Island and more than 150 in the Lakehouse Ballroom at Sun City Hilton Head.

The stops come less than two weeks before Kasich's planned special announcement in Cincinnati on July 21, when he is expected to formally enter the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

Before that announcement, though, Kasich asked voters on Wednesday to look back at his legislative career in Ohio and Washington, D.C. He recalled the time he met President Richard Nixon and predicted Martians would choose Ohio if they wanted to visit Earth.

Here are four key quotes from Kasich's speech Wednesday:

"I'm sitting right outside the Oval Office, and the guy comes up to me and says to me, 'Young man, you're going to get five minutes alone with the president of the United States.' ... It's unbelievable. I tell you what I'm thinking, I ain't gettin' out in five lousy minutes; I didn't come all this way for that. ... We sit down at his desk, and I spend 20 minutes in the Oval Office with the president as an 18-year-old college freshman."

In 1970, as an intrepid freshman at Ohio State University, Kasich wrote a flattering letter to Nixon "inviting myself over" to the Oval Office, he recalled at Sun City on Wednesday.

Nixon agreed to the meeting, and it left a lasting impression on Kasich, who would go on to work as an aide in the Ohio legislature before winning his first elected seat in the Ohio Senate at age 26.

During that term in the legislature, Kasich says he learned that bipartisan politics was the most effective way to succeed.

"I don't want to fight with Democrats, I want to get things done, and that's how I really learned at an early age how to accomplish things. I'm not in politics to be a Republican. The Republican Party is my vehicle, not my master. That's not what I'm about."

Kasich would go on to leverage a bipartisan approach to help craft a balanced federal budget in 1997, during his 18-year stint representing Ohio's 12th District in the U.S. House of Representatives, he said.

After leaving Congress in 2001, Kasich went on to work for Fox News and Lehman Brothers until his return to politics in 2010 with tea party support as governor of a struggling Ohio.

The programs Kasich implemented have put Ohioans back to work and driven growth, he said. Similar programs to streamline regulations, devolve political power to local governments, incentivize businesses and make education more flexible could work at the federal level, he added.

That experience is his trademark for a potential presidential run -- and that's where the Martians come in.

"If you were a Martian, and you were told by your fearless leader to come take a snapshot or a picture of America, you know where'd you fly? Right over Ohio. Ohio is America in a microcosm. Everything I find, no matter where I travel, we have in Ohio. ... It ain't any different if you're president or if you're governor, that's why it's so important to have that experience."

Combine the experiences leading an ailing All-American state with nearly two decades in Washington, D.C., and a bipartisan attitude, and Kasich says he could be a potent contender the 2016 race.

"It doesn't work when you don't solve problems, and you know who pays? Our kids, because we have a weaker country. ... We need to get our people to stop trying to play for the crowd and start putting the good of our country and our kids first. If we do that and respect other people, even if they totally disagree with us, that's how you get things fixed in America."

Follow reporter Zach Murdock on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Zach and on Facebook at facebook.com/IPBGZach.

Related content:

• The 6 most interesting quotes from Rick Santorum's visit to Sun City , June 29, 2015
• Kasich not worried about being bumped by Trump in 1st debate , July 7, 2015

This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 8:00 PM with the headline "Ohio Gov. John Kasich talks Martians, Nixon and bipartisan politics in Sun City + video."