Who is he again?
From Politico:
According to the AP, Jon Huntsman is making it official June 21.
His move comes a day after a debate in New Hampshire, a state he’ll play for, which he said he would not take part in because he hadn’t yet made up his mind about running.
He’s announcing his campaign in New Jersey, at Liberty State Park — home to the statue — a setting that doesn’t have much to do with his roots or a natural constituency (like, say, a Mitt Romney announcement based in New Hampshire or a Michele Bachmann announcement in Iowa).
But he’s making his move right after the stumble of Tim Pawlenty, who has created an opening for other Mitt Romney alternatives.
I clicked on the Politico link and said to myself, “Huh. So that’s what he looks like. Who knew?!”
Do I need to pay any attention to this guy? I think I’m all stocked up on GOP crazy for the moment.
And what is this T-Paw “stumble”? That he didn’t refer to Obamacare as Obomneycare? That he’s the boring cheese in a fail sandwich? That he is a former mullet-American?
::shrug::
I think it’s foolish to discount T-Paw. He’ll never get Tea Party support, but he was definitely the least crazy sounding of the candidates who are actually running (sit down, Newt) and everybody knows that all the crap going on this early doesn’t mean a damn thing.
I don’t know.
It makes me sleepy to think about it.
[cross-posted]
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DEf6kaf3jI
GDrew
He’s sane. He’s therefore got no shot at the Repub nomination.
Served
Last night, when John King mentioned Huntsman, you could see an older guy in the crowd turn to his wife and mouth “Who?!”
Served
Addendum for Mitt and Huntsman: From The Book of Mormon
Son of Prog
I don’t know what GOP crazy you’re talking about, ABL, I just finished this Slate article by Jacob Weisberg that says the GOP candidates are far less wacky than we think: http://www.slate.com/id/2296924/?GT1=38001
Culture of Truth
The French lady who says “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses!” ?
Davis X. Machina
One wire service lead begins: “Former Obama administration official….”
A four-word long campaign. Boy, that’s short.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
but Huntsman can’t win, he was born in China.
Villago Delenda Est
This is all about establishing himself for 2016, which is wide open.
Of course, he’s assuming that Rethugs will take lessons to heart from the forthcoming shellacking in 2012. This is by no means a sure thing. Doubling down on the cretinous stupid seems to be the pattern they’re in, and it’s unlikely given their ideological blinders that they’ll get out of that pattern. After all, they claim the problem with the deserting coward is that he wasn’t “conservative” enough.
Sixers
Why is he crazy again or at least painted to be crazy in this post? Nice research you did on this. Lazy.
ruemara
Can I say I just don’t care? I just don’t care. I wish the Netroots/Blogsphericals were more focused on how we can organize, get news and information out about voter suppression, grass roots viral videos to hit sectors. If the opposition isn’t blonde adonis obama from the 4th reverse earth dimension, then I could give a rat’s crap.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
@Son of Prog:
Why even the former editor of the liburel New Republic says the republicans are okay.
ABL
@ruemara: i’m working on a post about Florida voter suppression. :)
Scott
@Sixers: The dude’s crazy if he thinks he’s got a shot at the GOP nomination after serving as one of Obama’s ambassadors…
FarBetterThanHorrible
This guy would probably not launch nukes or turn orphanages into commercial organ farms his first week in office.
So, doesn’t pass the litmus test for most Republican primary voters.
ABL
@Sixers:
Because he’s a Republican.
Mnemosyne
@Sixers:
If you know that Huntsman is not crazy, that means you’ve already paid far more attention to him than I have. As far as I’ve seen, he’s your typical milquetoast flip-flopping Republican — you could put his speeches into the mouths of Mittens or T-Paw or even Newt and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them.
Culture of Truth
I’ll have you know that when he was in China, they created millions of new jobs!
ABL
@Sixers: Next time I’ll be sure to post:
“Politico says this guy is running.” and that’s all.
If you couldn’t tell by the tone of the post, I am entirely uninterested in doing research on this guy.
Villago Delenda Est
@Scott:
Exactly.
The 27% will never accept him, because he has consorted openly with the Islamofascist Kenyan soshulist enemy.
Sixers
@Scott:
Maybe but he seems like a decent human being for the most part. I just thought to post something on a political blog the writer would do a minimal amount of research.
Alex S.
I think he’s just doing it to sabotage Mitt Romney’s campaign. After all, if Romney is the nominee the next nominee won’t be another mormon. I don’t think that Huntsman can win the nomination. Iowa will be a battle between Romney’s money, Pawlenty’s midwestern roots and Bachmann’s evangelicalism. There’s no room for Huntsman. So he’d have to beat Romney in New Hampshire, but after last night it won’t happen. Romney is the serious man’s choice right now and he’s going to collect enough money all through the summer. Huntsman might be able to attack Romney, in contrast to Pawlenty, but he would have to do it from the left which will kill his chances in the other states. South Carolina is out of the question. And Huntsman’s foreign policy experience will be worthless in this environment (especially after the killing of Bin Laden).
So Huntsman has to siphon off enough votes from Romney to give someone else the win. And who would that be? Perry or Bachmann, and Bachmann might actually lock up the nomination with wins in Iowa and New Hampshire (and momentum in South Carolina).
Scott
@Sixers: Minimal amount of research? Do you have anything to offer other than concern trollery?
Doooouuuuchhhhe.
Chris
@Son of Prog:
Heckuva link, Brownie.
No, they just accused him of having embraced our enemies. Nothing to see here, move along.
Villago Delenda Est
@Alex S.:
He’s going to have to work fast if he wants to have an impact on sabotaging it. His greatest competition in doing so is Mitt himself.
ABL
@Sixers: yeah. i’m sure you’ve addressed these concerns to the other front-pagers who sometimes post one liners? right?
give me a break.
ETA: decent human being? HE’S A REPUBLICAN. that ends the inquiry for me.
ruemara
@ABL:
YAY!
Bill
There really is a guy named HuntsMan?! I thought that was just a nickname for Larry Craig or Dick Chaney!
Sixers
@ABL:
Welcome the lefts version of The Corner. Hard hitting analysis right there.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Villago Delenda Est:
It took the GOP two consecutive defeats at the hands of FDR in 1932 and 36 before they nominated Wendell Willkie, an avowed internationalist. It took the Dems three consecutive defeats at the hands of RR and GHB in 1980, 84 and 88 before they nominated Bill Clinton. So I’m guessing that 8-12 years is roughly the time it takes for either major party to pivot ideologically after a series of losses, which is a shorter amount of time than you might think based on present evidence.
Of course that doesn’t explain the GOP going from Goldwater in 1964 directly to Nixon in 68, but IIRC the people Clifton White got elected to the grass roots of the GOP infrastructure in time to take over the 1964 convention were not able to consolidate their hold over the party apparatus in time to block Nixon in 68 and were partially purged during the Nixon admin, which is why it took all the way until 1980 before they got one of their own back to the top of the ticket.
So yes, Huntsman appears to be setting himself up for a either one of (A) a run in 2016 or 2020, depending on how long it takes the GOP to turn around, or (B) the sort of “good soldier for the party” ideological pivot GHB pulled off in 1980.
Scott
@Sixers:
No. Skillz.
Ash Can
@ Sixers: Huntsman seemed like a decent enough guy, until he went from zero to douchebag in 3.2 seconds after resigning from his ambassadorship. Now, as ABL says, he’s just another Republican. Given the evidence, her take is better informed than yours.
Warren Terra
It’s really not fair to assume he’s crazy. In the month or two since he came back, he has said some quite wingnutty things, which rather surprised me, so he may be far more craven and opportunistic than I’d have assumed. But his reputation is of sanity and moderation – not, obviously, traits in big demand among the R’s these days.
When Obama managed to ship an accomplished, multilingual, reputedly moderate Republican off to China in 2009, I thought Obama was grooming Huntsman to run for President as the head of a chastened Republican party in 2016. Instead, he’s mystifyingly returned home to campaign for a shot with an unhinged Republican party in 2012. Maybe he sees it as being his ticket to the veep slot, but otherwise I’ve no clue what he’s thinking.
ABL
@Sixers: sick burn, dude.
ABL
@Warren Terra: that’s my point. any moderate republican who licks the boots of the crazies in the Republican party automatically loses any credibility in my view.
How quickly these otherwise intelligent people are willing to relinquish any principles they may have had just to be given an opportunity to stand on a stage and debate a known idiot (Bachmann). It speaks volumes about their character.
Chris T.
Huntsman is, or was anyway, the sanest of the group. He was guv here in the (crazy) state of Utah and during that period, stopped the crazy lege from passing a number of crazy laws, and pushed for a few sane-ish ones, including relaxing some of the stupidity we have around alcohol that keeps tourists away. (Hm, maybe that’s actually a good thing… :-) )
Like Mitt, though, he has no chance at all as a Republican, because he is not Of The Tribe (i.e., not Christian). (Mormons call themselves Christians, but technically only Catholics are Christians—Christianity is technically a cult, and you must follow the cult leader to be a member. That’s not what I mean here though: to be chosen as the R-party candidate, you must be Of The Tribe, where “tribe membership” includes one of the more mainstream offshoots of Christianity. There are some that argue that Glenn Beck has made Mormonism acceptable to Republicans, but I disagree: most Republicans are quite willing to allow Mormons to vote for them, but are not yet willing to obey one.)
Villago Delenda Est
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I don’t know. The Republicans were not batshit insane in the 30’s, and furthermore, what happened between ’64 and ’68 had two things going on: the generation gap tearing the Dems asunder, and Nixon cashing in chits from his support of the Republicans in ’64 in an effort he knew was losing, but he was a good soldier anyways and had chips for ’68.
Norquist and his fellow “conservatives” back in the 70’s wanted to take over a political party and make it “conservative” in their neofeudal way. They chose the GOP as the logical target, to get the party apparatus they needed to move forward…creating an entirely new party was seen as too difficult a thing to carry over.
They’ve succeeded, and the GOP is paying the price for that success.
Southern Beale
He looks like Anthony Bourdain in a suit with slicked-down hair.
PS
@Son of Prog: I assumed that Slate was just being its usual predictably contrarian self, but then I read the piece and now I understand that Weisberg is simply promoting the horse-race like a good little villager.
Obama is going to be In Real Trouble unless and until he actually is in trouble, in which case he will be Making a Stunning Comeback, after which if there is still time he will be In Real Trouble again, until … it sure is going to be
dullthrilling, yes, that’s what I meant to say.porlob
I have to say, I could live to John Hunstman as a presidential candidate. He doesn’t have a the chance of a snowball at the heart of the sun, of course. But his short tenure as governor of Utah scored him a lot of accolades from those of us on the left for taking some principled stances and actions in opposition to Republican jerkery. By Utah state political standards, he’s a wild leftie.
As much as I’d like to see the GOP choose someone like Bachmann, as it’d mean an easy victory, I kinda wish they’d choose someone like Huntsman, as I could feel a little more pride that half the country voted for someone I merely disagreed with, rather than someone who is insane.
Comrade Kevin
@Sixers: There’s lots of other sites on the Internet, yet here you are, still reading this one.
chopper
the statue of liberty is on liberty island which is NY, not NJ.
boss bitch
Don’t you mean Mitt Romney here? The Tea Party kinda likes T-Paw and Romney is actually the least crazy.
chopper
@Sixers:
i thought he was a giant gross hairy spider.
philowitz
philowitz
b-psycho
TPM had a post about how in some poll of GOPers in Iowa there was only one person (person, not percent) supporting Huntsman. They tracked him down and found out it was a guy that voted Obama in 2008.
Legalize
2016.
Chris
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
It can take a lot longer than that: wasn’t until 1952 that the Republican Party finally nominated a moderate Republican, who could frankly admit that the number of people who didn’t want the New Deal to stay in place was “negligible” and they were “stupid.”
I think the slap in the face to Goldwater was so enormous that a lot of Republicans basically gave up on the economic royalist agenda, thinking the consensus for social democracy was just too entrenched to be taken on.
Nixon ran 100% on cultural issues, and the Republicans learned from him that that was how you won elections, not by running on policy as Goldwater had done. So a decade later they ran Reagan, who cloaked the Goldwater ideology in Nixonian culture wars, and voila! The GOP of today.
cmorenc
Huntsman starts with the huge advantage of having a lock on Utah’s 5 electoral votes. 5 down, 265 to go.
boss bitch
I take back what I said about Romney being the least crazy. After (lying) slamming Obama on “bumps in the road” he says this:
Asked about federal disaster relief for recent tornado and flood victims at last night’s GOP debate, candidate Mitt Romney called the spending “immoral” and said the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be privatized. With greenhouse pollution on the rise, the United States has been struck by a “punishing series of billion-dollar disasters.”
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/06/14/244973/mitt-romney-federal-disaster-relief-for-tornado-and-flood-victims-is-immoral-makes-no-sense-at-all/#comment_link
Mitt:
eemom
at the rate these republican candidates are piling up, the asylums are gonna run out of crazy people.
JenJen
Big year for the LDSers! First, a Tony Award; now, two Presidential candidates! Ummm, wow, seriously.
fasteddie9318
@Son of Prog:
Yes, yes, excellent news for John McCain, or whatever.
lamh34
ABL,
I think that this is as good an article on Hustsman possible strategy as any.
Huntsman To Crowd Romney’s Turf
fasteddie9318
Here’s what I don’t get about the “Romney is teh front-runner” meme: he’s probably the closest thing to a household name in the GOP field, and he’s hovering in the 20s. He’s running as a moderate in a primary where moderate voters are in short supply. If the people who support Gingrich, Pawlenty, Bachmann, Cain, whoever, were of a mind to support Romney, wouldn’t they already be doing so? I think once the Anybody But Romney vote manages to coalesce behind a single candidate, things are not going to look so hot for Mitt.
Xecky Gilchrist
@lamh34: if the nominee loses in the general election, the party might be looking to move to the center enough that Huntsman could become the establishment choice.
As may be, but then all opponents will need to do is dust off the teabaggerish crap Huntsman has been unspooling lately.
Bex
@Sixers: “Seems like a decent human being…” So you haven’t done your research and don’t really know?
MTmofo
The Great Salt Lake isn’t exactly an inspiring backdrop for such an important event. The Mormon Temple, while lovely*, isn’t exactly great optics either.
*espcially with that seagull statue up on top.
pk
@Mike Kay (Chief of Staff):
You are a fucking moron!
gocart mozart
@pk:
Just curious, but why?
Video of girl sleepng on subway = Huntsman is boring. Not very clever but isn’t “fucking moron!” a bit harsh?
greenergood
Starting his campaign on the Summer Solstice?? Obviously a DFH.
pk
@gocart mozart:
You are right. I tried to delete it but could not as I got an error message. I saw the video and read a few comments below it, which pissed me off. I don’t know who took the video or why , but I just find it so hateful when any video of random women in any situation is followed by utterly crude sexual comments. I thought that was what Mike Kay was implying to ABL by linking to it. But realized he is not responsible for the comments, and so I apologise (to him). As I said deletion did not work, and there it stays on the internet forever. Kneejerk stupid reaction on my part. Love the edit/delete feature on BJ. Would love it more if it worked.
FlipYrWhig
Huntsman’s angle must be this: there’s one handsome Mormon millionaire with an overblown reputation for moderation in the race… if these trends continue, I’ll be golden! Same theory as putting your dirty-water hot dog cart across the street from another dirty-water hot dog cart.
Tim I
How the fuck will we distinguish between him and Romney? Two Republican rich guys, who are bit-time Mormons and have a million grandchildren. The fact that Huntsman is the one who can speak Chinese isn’t gonna cut it…not for me.
Maybe I’ll just call them both Romneyman.
pablo
Since she faces NYC, that means Lady Liberty turned her back on him!
rikyrah
I would appreciate someone to answer this question for me.
Only one blogger has given me a serious answer:
Mittens’ biggest problem is that he’s going to be the victim of religious bigotry.
Now, unless Huntsman is part of the ‘acceptable’ part of the Mormon ‘ cult’, please explain to me why Mormonism, which is going to hit Mittens, won’t get Huntsman?
nobody in MSM wants to admit that, overall, the evangelicals are a bunch of religious bigots
donr
There’s a funny video out there of Huntsman showing up in Beijing for one of the failed jasmine-revolution-protests. Someone (possibly plainclothes security?) identified him to the crowd “Hey, isn’t that Ambassador Huntsman?” and the crowd started heckling him.
And Brave Sir Huntsman ran away. A tactical super-genius.
http://shanghaiist.com/2011/02/24/video-jon-huntsman-jasmine-revolution.php
sixers
@Ash Can:
He is the first person, republican or democrat to resign their post after years of service. Good call. What a piece of shit. As informed as ABL you are.
sixers
ABL thinks T-Paw won’t be supported by the tea party when he pretty much already is.
This is pure laziness but hey she’s uses a lot of exclamation points in her writing so lets let it slide.