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The Spectacle Blog
As you can tell from the previous posts here, not too many people are mourning the departure of Jon Huntsman from the Republican presidential race. The unfortunate thing was that Huntsman did have a lot to offer in terms of policy: he had some smart things to say about “too big to fail” and the Washington bailout mentality; he was surprisingly bold on entitlement reform; he had actually accomplished more for pro-lifers and gun owners than some of his ostensibly more conservative rivals; he started to sketch out a needed challenge to the Republican consensus on foreign policy and civil liberties that was more nuanced than Ron Paul’s (even if Huntsman didn’t always follow this challenge to its logical conclusions).
All this got lost in the shuffle of Vogue, tweets that seemed to mock the Republican base, the Huntsman daughters, generally listless debate performances, and seemingly endless comments made in Mandarin. They didn’t seem to understand that serving as ambassador to China was a less compelling “country first” storyline than John McCain’s war record or that the president for whom Huntsman was ambassador — one Barack Obama — raised the bar for Huntsman in proving his conservative credentials.
How much of this was an accident and how much was deliberate strategy I don’t know. It was clearly a little of both. The real strategy appeared to be winning New Hampshire McCain-style at the same time someone who couldn’t win the nomination bloodied Mitt Romney in Iowa. Huntsman seemed to enter the race as John Anderson, then tried to appeal to conservative policy wonks as Phil Gramm, only to end up Lamar Alexander: a candidate with a fairly conservative platform whose votes came mostly from moderates and who couldn’t shake the moderate-to-liberal label.
UPDATE: I have a longer column on this in the Guardian.
View all comments (9) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/01/16/one-cheer-for-jon-huntsman
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Dorothy K Carter| 1.16.12 @ 10:24AM
This organization loves to blast Romney but praises Jon? Utah GOP can't stand the guy he was re-elected largely by liberal population in SLC UT. Only 18% of (R) in UT favor Jon over Mitt. Jon Jr turned UT into a sanctuary state. We see 1 way U-Hauls coming from AZ to UT. Crime here is 2 x national average. Thanks Jon........No thanks America saw through it.. . Jon is no conservative.
Casey Abell| 1.16.12 @ 10:49AM
Huntsman's only chance was a complete Romney collapse, followed by a surprise win (or at least close second) in NH. Neither happened and Huntsman went bye-bye.
somnolence| 1.16.12 @ 11:00AM
Entitlement reform is truly a red herring, especially when its message comes from our representatives who pull down a $174,000 per year pension for life courtesy of us. Just give us all out here the money we paid in to FICA over the years, either in lump sum or quarterly payments starting at age 62 if we want it and shut up. That applies equally to ANY of the current candidates running, whether they are Washington insiders like Gingrich and Santorum(not including Paul because I have learned he rejected his pension). Also, the proposal to extend the retirement age is bogus copout, an excuse for incompetency. Only 80 bills were passed in the Senate this past year, yet Nevada(and Republicans there) keep returning Harry Reid election cycle after election cycle. He and Mitch McConnell are worth at least $10 million apiece. So, I wonder, will anything really change after November?
PCP Smoker| 1.16.12 @ 11:24AM
Typical stuff from DC Conservative Central. Huntsman is a jerk. Huntsman exuded rich-man arrogance. His humor was often sarcastic. His mandarin was weak. Also, being an accomplished conservative is not that hard in Utah. Good riddance. Time to spend daddy's money at some other thing.
Indy| 1.16.12 @ 11:30AM
Huntsman has no credibility as a conservative when he supports global warming and mocked anyone who dared to question "settled science" He could have easily said after climategate, he reviewed the emails and said he was wrong to say the science was settled. He could have changed his position based on recent developments and then some of us might have been willing to listen to him but his snarky attitude was a complete turn off. It was obvious to me he doesn't like the commoners, he "knows" better.
Dai Alanye | 1.16.12 @ 11:44AM
The correct answer is -- ego that he made no attempt to hide. And in America, Cantonese would have served him better than Mandarin.
Occam's Tool| 1.16.12 @ 1:25PM
Dai, you consistently write interesting comments. Thank you so much. Why Cantonese over Mandarin?
Naql| 1.16.12 @ 3:44PM
Presumably because Cantonese is more widely spoken in Hong Kong and expat communities outside of China, while Mandarin is the official language of the People's Republic of China.
Oh, and vote Ron Paul... Or you can wait and vote Gary Johnson on the Libertarian ticket.
Dixie Pixie| 1.16.12 @ 4:17PM
Gentlemen...It is very simple.
Huntsmen believed the conventional Washington Insider wisdom that the majority of votes are just outside the left wing of the Republican Party.
Huntsman wanted to be the leader of the majority Independents and Middle Moderates.
In short the DINO, Independent and RINO vote.
After proving the MSM punditry was correct in contending that the Conservatives were too politically extreme to attract voters, Huntsman was going to rally the voters to the left of Mittens Romney to victory.
Properly positioned where the MSM claimed the Majority Middle is, Huntsman could draw away from Obama, just enough votes from the right-wing of the Democrats to gain the White House.
Of course the MSM and pundits were wrong.
There were few to no votes in that political area.
The Independents and Middle Moderates did not exist in any numbers, so Huntsman lost.
It was all a MSM head-fake to fool the Republicans into adopting Democratic Party programs as their own.