Channeling his old boss Ronald Reagan, former Ambassador and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman declared for president with the Statue of Liberty in the background. “For the first time in our history, we are about to pass down to the next generation a country that is less powerful, less compassionate, less competitive and less confident than the one we got,” Hunstman said. “This is totally unacceptable and totally un-American.”
Hunstman’s announcement speech can be summed up with one word: restraint. He championed fiscal restraint, restraint in foreign policy, and above all restraint in attacking Barack Obama. “He and I have a difference of opinion on how to help the country we both love,” Hunstman said. “But the question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better President; not who’s the better American.”
This last bit might be out of step with the mood of many Republicans, but hopefully it at least gets that annoying Chris Matthews commercial — in which he claims no Republican presidential candidate would say what Huntsman just said — pulled. Huntsman is selling his own governing credentials, not ideology, potentially out-Romneying Romney.