Would conservatives support a presidential bid by David
Petraeus?
The Iraq surge architect isn’t a candidate. But for years
prominent conservatives from Rep. Peter King to Andrew Breitbart
have touted the soldier-scholar as a dream conservative candidate
to take on Barack Obama.
The question is, if Petraeus had run, would his service in
the Obama administration — first as head of U.S. Central Command,
then as Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan and now as CIA
Director — have counted against him?
It’s safe to say conservatives wouldn’t have re-purposed
the old “General Betray-Us” moniker for the man who has become one
of President Obama’s most trusted advisors on national security and
intelligence matters. By serving the president, most people
understand, Petraeus has been serving the country.
But serving one’s country has been seen as a negative
factor in former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman’s bid for the
Republican nomination. Huntsman served as
the Obama administration’s ambassador to China from August 2009
until May 2011. That service, and the way in which he ended it,
is a major reason why his candidacy has
floundered.
Though he doesn’t always talk like one, Jon Huntsman
is a
conservative.
He combines many of the best qualities of the other
Republican candidates. He has the deep policy knowledge of Newt
Gingrich, the business background of Mitt Romney, and the record of
conservative governance of Rick Perry. And his pro-life
credentials, both personally and professionally, are as impressive
as those of Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum or Ron Paul.
What’s more, Huntsman’s foreign policy background is
unmatched in the Republican field. He held foreign policy positions
in the administrations of the last three Republican
presidents.
All this helped to make Huntsman a perfect choice to be
America’s top diplomat in China. And by all accounts
Huntsman, who speaks Mandarin fluently, did an exemplary job in
China. He earned high marks from former ambassadors, China experts,
human rights activists and business leaders.
Unlike other Obama administration officials,
Huntsman wasn’t afraid to praise Chinese dissidents or criticize
the communist government, especially for its human rights
violations.
You might think these things would have endeared Huntsman
to conservatives. And they probably would have, except that he did
them as a representative of the Obama administration.
If Republican primary voters know anything about
Huntsman it’s that he worked for Obama — and for most that’s all
they need to know. As a commenter on the conservative blog
freerepublic.com wrote about Huntsman’s
acceptability as a GOP candidate, “Nope. He worked for Obama.
Nope. Nope. Nope.”
Huntsman realizes how his service has been received by
Republican voters, telling the Washington Post last month,
“I crossed a partisan line when I went to serve this
administration, which as an outgrowth of my personal belief that
you always put country first. People looked at that and they
concluded that I had committed an egregious sin, and they then just
sort of glossed right over us and went on to the next
candidate.”
Huntsman didn’t help himself by breaking one of the
cardinal rules of modern American politics. Ronald
Reagan popularized the 11th Commandment of politics: never speak
ill of another Republican.
Huntsman broke what could be called the 12th commandment
of modern Republican politics: never speak well of a Democrat. But
Huntsman didn’t speak well of just any Democrat. He complimented
the three Democrats most loathed by Republicans: Barack Obama and
Bill and Hillary Clinton.
When he resigned as ambassador to China, Huntsman wrote a
short note to Obama, thanking him for the chance to serve. He
referred to Obama as “a remarkable leader” and wrote, “it has been
a great honor getting to know you.” He even underlined the word
“remarkable.”
In another letter, Huntsman had kind words for President
Clinton and Secretary of State Clinton, calling the former’s
analysis of world events “brilliant.”
These private handwritten notes were obtained last April by the
Daily Caller, a conservative website. The Daily
Caller referred
to the notes as Huntsman’s “love letters” to Obama. Numerous other
news outlets discussed the notes, including the major networks,
newspapers, conservative talk radio and Fox News.
When Sean Hannity pressed Huntsman on the letters, and in
particular his use of the word “remarkable” to describe Obama’s
leadership, Huntsman averred that he meant Obama was a remarkable
leader for appointing a Republican to such a crucial foreign policy
position.
No matter how he meant them, Huntsman’s gracious comments
stand out at a time when anti-Obama sentiment runs deep.
The Daily Caller says the person who sent the
letters did so on the condition that his or her identity not be
disclosed. It’s likely the Obama reelection campaign wanted the
letters to be made public to poison Huntsman’s chances of winning
the Republican nomination.
This is no surprise given how much Team Obama feared
Huntsman’s candidacy. Last spring, Obama’s campaign manager,
David Plouffe, told US News & World Report that he
considered Huntsman Obama’s strongest prospective opponent, and the
only one who made the president’s team “shake in their
boots.”
Other Democrats felt similarly. Twenty-five of the 100
Democratic Party insiders and strategists National Journal
polled last June believed Huntsman would be the strongest candidate
the Republican Party could nominate, ranking him a close second
behind Mitt Romney, who received 27 votes.
Since then, liberal politicians and journalists have
been, as Time’s Melinda Henneberger put
it recently, “pelting [Huntsman] with rose petals… that they
openly hope will disqualify him in the eyes of Republican Party
regulars.”
That Huntsman became the media’s favorite Republican
candidate for president certainly didn’t help his cause. But he
disqualified himself well before then. By crossing the partisan
line, Huntsman doomed his candidacy before it even
began.
