I have nothing special against Jon Huntsman, he seems reasonable enough as Republicans go, but when the press goes all in for the son of a billionaire, it’s hard not to smell a rat.
“It’s very hard to tell one of the Huntsmans ‘no,’” says Doug Foxley, a lobbyist and attorney who was a senior adviser to Jon Huntsman Jr. during his 2004 campaign and remains close to him. “Let me just put it this way: I think that Jon Sr. will be watching very closely those who do and don’t give to his son.”
Today, even the liberal Stanley Fish quasi-endorsed Jon Jr.:
When I ran for the office of secretary of my freshman class at the University of Pennsylvania in 1955, my campaign manager was Jon Huntsman, father of Jon Huntsman, Jr., the former governor of Utah, former Ambassador to China and current candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency.
[….]That civility may not play well with the “base” in the primaries; but it would play very well in the general election, as would a special expertise in the culture, language and economy of China, the country everyone agrees will be our rival/antagonist for the foreseeable future. Well-spoken, well-heeled, well-informed, smart, fresh-faced and cheerful, a good administrator, slightly progressive on social issues, conservative economically and savvy about foreign policy — Huntsman is an independent’s dream and the Democrats’ nightmare.
Has there ever been a noble, straight-shooting truth-teller who was not a member of the Galtian overclass?
Valdivia
The liberal Stanley Fish thinks Sara Palin is awesome so his love of Hunstman would be an improvement
jl
Huntsman started spouting some wingnut nonsense for a few days. Maybe it was a trial balloon to see whether he should run this cycle for years, of just as a preview for 2016.
Now his language has reasonabled up considerably.
Too bad. Now I trust him only a little more than any other GOPper. And I trust any other GOPper candidate as far as I can throw a house afire. So, Huntsman can get lost.
samson
who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?
Mark B
Sorry, even if all of those things are true, those are exactly the sort of qualifications that will keep someone from winning Republican primaries. The primary voters want someone who gives them bloody pictures of aborted fetuses so they can get their homicidal rage on against doctors that provide health care for women.
jl
Meant to type:
” Huntsman started spouting some wingnut nonsense for a few days. Maybe it was a trial balloon to see whether he should run this cycle for REALS, ”
I would edit but something called www dot change dot org is hanging up this here miserable blog load.
elm
Trick question. Non-Galtians are all dishonest, shiftless parasites.
Han's Solo
I want to give Huntsman the benefit of the doubt, but his “Yep, me too,” on the Ryan plan ended him for me.
Alex S.
I wonder what happened if Huntsman ran as an independent. But still, he’s an unknown outside of the political blogosphere.
Valdivia
According to Gallup Hunstman is now less popular after his launch….
James E. Powell
Fixed.
Joel
Does anyone like Stanley Fish? Serious question.
cleek
i suppose that explains why all of Huntsman’s support comes from the press.
oh, those independents.. they’re so easy to mind-read. libs too.
cleek
sounds like a grumpy muppet.
mc
Joel: no. And we don’t like Huntsman either.
DonkeyKong
Fish heads fish heads
Roly poly fish heads
fish heads fish heads
eat them up, yum!
In the morning laughing happy fish heads
In the evening floating in the soup
Ask a fish head anything you want to
they wont answer they cant talk.
I took a fish head out to see a mooovie
didnt have to pay to get it in.
Han's Solo
Um, isn’t that the opposite of the truth? Huntsman was supposed to be the Republican Democrats could vote for. That makes him someone the Republicans are unlikely to vote for and, therefore, not someone Democrats should worry about.
I would think the true Democrat’s nightmare would be something along the lines of Michelle Bachman. Or maybe showing up at work naked, especially if you worked with Michelle Bachman.
Culture of Truth
LOL the hell it would
Ken
Oh, yeah, he got that working for the Obama administration, didn’t he?
That alone means he’s toast in the primaries.
Martin
He wouldn’t be rich if he wasn’t a noble, straight-shooting truth-teller. If he wasn’t those things, the invisible hand of the free market would punish such amoral behavior with poverty and brown skin. Ayn says so.
Jay in Oregon
Who?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The trick with jigsaw puzzles is, you have to move the pieces around until they fit together snuggly and the picture makes sense.
jl
@17 Ken
No, it’s not that bad. I think Huntsman got the expertise in Chinese language and culture as a Mormon missionary…
Oops. Never mind. It’s worse than Nobama.
Culture of Truth
I was under the impression he first became an “expert” in China sendng jobs over there
Dennis SGMM
We’ve come to a pretty pass when the emessem characterizes any Republican who isn’t ostentatiously batshit-insane as “…an independent’s dream and the Democrats’ nightmare.”
Linda Featheringill
Yeah. Tell me about it. Has anyone mentioned, boring?
boss bitch
I’m looking forward to the Whatever Happened To Jon Huntsman articles as the race heats up. Let’s just sweep his major flip flops under the rug and continue to call him a moderate because he’s nice.
Nutella
Isn’t it great living in the land of opportunity, where anyone can grow up to become president or senator and it doesn’t matter who your daddy is?
Culture of Truth
…I think Huntsman got the expertise in Chinese language and culture as a Mormon missionary…
There’s a popular Broadway musical in there somewhere
Han's Solo
My nightmares usually involve killer clowns.
Is that what Fish was getting at?
schrodinger's cat
What about Andrew Sullivan’s latest favorite, Chris Christie are any other punditubbies gushing about him?
Frankensteinbeck
‘An independent’s dream and the Democrats’ nightmare.’
Behold the bias of the press in her most naked glory! The Equivilancy Narrative is their most precious belief. That everyone remotely rational is a Democrat is killing them. Worse, no matter how they lie and lie their GOP stars get exposed as gibbering howler monkeys. The journalistic class is invested to the depths of their souls in the idea that the truly intellectual are on neither side, and… well, even they can tell everyone who’s actually ‘moderate’ is a Dem now.
Basically, you can’t be too cool to pick a side when one side is holding a nose picking contest.
Dennis SGMM
@Nutella
Aw, you’re just jealous because Huntsman was able to hit town with just a few million bucks in his pocket and make something of himself.
DonkeyKong
Huntsman’s got the Bloomberg pheromones that drive the villagers wild!
Han's Solo
I’d love it if they picked Christie. God, he’d be perfect.
Of course, during the debates, they debate moderators would have to stop on several occasions for “snack time.” And they’d have to pre-approve all questions, because apparently there are many (most) things that are none of our business.
Not only does his girth make him a huge target for jokes like the one I just told about him being a huge target, but he is also an asshole and a bully.
Go ahead GOP, roll out Christie. You may want to pick a VP that isn’t quite so round, might I suggest Pac Man?
DonkeyKong
‘Cause I’ve got Pac-Man fever;
Pac-Man fever.
It’s driving me crazy.
Driving me crazy.
I’ve got Pac-Man fever;
Pac-Man fever.
I’m going out of my mind.
Going out of my mind.
I’ve got Pac-Man fever;
Pac-Man fever.
I’m going out of my mind.
Going out of my mind.
I’ve got all the patterns down, up until the ninth key.
I’ve got Speedy on my tail, and I know it’s either him or me.
So I’m heading out the back door and in the other side;
Gonna eat the cherries up and take them all for a ride.
JoshA
Jim Webb as a noble, straight-shooting truth-teller who was not a member of the Galtian overclass?
But generally no. And he only gets included b/c he served in DoD under Reagan and quit b/c he thought Reagan wasn’t spending enough on the military, and both he and his son are combat veteran Marines.
cmorenc
The problem with Huntsman isn’t whether he now might well be a straight-shooting who would govern (if he currently was President) as an eclectic moderate whom all but the hardest-core progressives could happily live with. He might be, or he might not be.
THE REAL PROBLEM is the enormous commitments tea-baggers and hard-core wingers are going to insistently, firmly extract from him before he has any chance of winning the nomination, and if he did succeed in that, of winning the general election. He’d have to do so many wink, wink nudge, nudgies toward the tea partiers and use such carefully qualified language in attempting to appeal to the mainstream electorate, that he’d be unable to function in office without leaving the base of the GOP feeling deeply betrayed and rebellious enough to disown and destroy him if he showed any departure toward moderation from true-believer hard-core winger principles. They feel they’ve been through this once with Dubya, and even though we more progressive types view Dubya as the most destructively reactionary president in history, he wasn’t remotely true to conservatism enough to suit the true believers and hard-core ideologues. They’re going to insist on a GOP president acting, and not just talking, like a 100% on-board true hard-right uncompromising believer, and if he won’t, they’ve already demonstrated their willingness to politically kill one of their own, like they did Huntsman’s fellow Utah native, ex-Senator Robert Bennett.
Calouste
Has there already been a poll where Huntsman polled higher than the margin of error? I haven’t seen one yet, although I do remember seeing a poll where he got 1. 1 vote that is, not 1 percent.
geg6
cmorenc is correct. That is all. Huntsman is toast.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
I’m waiting for the endorsement of Cat Fish.
NonyNony
Doesn’t this block of text describe the modern Democratic Party for the most part?
And don’t most Republicans explicitly REJECT most of this?
Sounds more like a Republican nightmare to me…
quannlace
Sure. Just like all liberals are supposed to be so scared of Sarah Palin,
Brandon
Is it just me or is DougJ losing his edge? The post was all set up for a Michelmas Term at OxBridge quip and he chose instead to go with sincerity. Where, or where has all the good fun living snark gone?
But if it is true that DougJ may be past his prime, I wonder if we could convince those firebaggers to effect an off-season trade for tbogg and a young blogger to be named later. That would give us a chance to evaluate a couple guys with a medical to ensure that we weren’t getting someone certifiable.
fuckwit
I think they are going to have to dig Bob Dole out of the grave to run against Obama next year. A placeholder candidate of some kind.
What? Dole isn’t dead yet? Even better, they won’t have to spend so much on makeup then.
(another) Josh
Jane Tompkins, Walter Michaels, and my racist uncle.
My parents, Ayn Rand and God.