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?