Joe and I just ran into former GOP congressman John Kasich (R-OH) on the street

You know, I've never loved living in Washington, DC. I joke about living here in exile from Chicago (or NY or Paris or so many other cities I'd rather be living in). But sometimes it's pretty cool living in the nation's capital. Tonight was one of those nights. Joe and I were walking home from the local diner when we walked by a friend of Joe's, and his friend, John Kasich. Joe stopped his friend to say hello, without even realizing Kasich was there, and while Joe and his buddy caught up Kasich and I got into a half-hour conversation. Absolutely fascinating. I told him I was not going to blog about the substance of our conversation because I don't want people to worry that every time they speak with me casually, on the street or at a party or at dinner, I'm going to pull an "I gotcha!" on them and publish our entire conversation. I'll just say that he's interesting - likes to think about things, large things, "meta issues" as we perhaps too often call them now (though so does Gingrich - have only met Gingrich once, in the green room at FOX, he congratulated me on doing a good job on O'Reilly). And while Kasich is (was?) known to have been quite the conservative, he didn't strike me as particularly unreasonable. And before anyone tells me I got snookered, I've lived in DC since 1985 and have met my share of "important" people. You can tell when there's potential for common ground with someone. (For example, 4 years ago I got the sense from American Family Association lawyer Joe Murray that there was a decent guy lurking inside that religious right exterior - and I was right.) I just never thought I'd get that sense from John Kasich. Anyway, very interesting evening.