Republican presidential candidate John Kasich was in Manchester Friday holding another town hall. This one was aimed at local business owners, with a plan for how he would balance the country’s budget. But the conversation veered into some unexpected territory.
Fifty or so people squeezed into the parlor of an old Manchester mansion to hear Kasich as he paced through the crowd. A handful of young people leaned against the wall.
When Kasich opened the floor to questions, one of them—a UNH student named Kelsey Losier—asked what he would do to curb climate change. Kasich didn’t offer a specific plan.
"We need everything; we need oil, we need gas, we need clean coal, we need renewables," he said. "We need everything."
And that was when Losier and her friends started chanting in protest, for a few seconds, before other voters shouted at them to stop.
But more than once before the town hall ended, Kasich made a point of telling the younger voters he was happy they’d come.
"Whether I agree with their positions on all these things, it doesn't matter to me," Kasich said. "And that's not political. When I was your age, I was raising so much hell you wouldn't believe it. So keep doing it."
Losier and her friends say they do plan to keep showing up.
