The Huntsman on the teevee phenomenon, where a candidate consistently polling at 1% gets invited on almost every cable show, is fascinating to me. In part, I assumed that the reason that Huntsman was becoming a cable TV darling was that he was the “reasonable Republican” foil to the Bachmann crazy, but here’s Huntsman on Face the Nation:
SCHIEFFER: That’s pretty clear. Let me just ask you some details on that. Does that mean that there will be no deduction for interest on mortgages, Governor? Does it? That’s what it means?
HUNTSMAN: That means no deductions. That means no deductions at all.
SCHIEFFER: What about — what about no child tax credit? I guess it means none of that, no earned income tax credit…
HUNTSMAN: None of that.
SCHIEFFER: But let me ask you this, does that mean that Social Security recipients are now going to have to pay taxes on their income?
Will veterans have to pay taxes on their disability checks and their benefits?
HUNTSMAN: Bob, what I’m asking for is a complete remake of our tax code. And in order to get where this country needs to be, in a position for the rest of the 21st century, given where of our other competitor nations have come since 1986 tax reform, which I thought was very successful under President Reagan — we forget we just haven’t made a whole lot of progress in the last 30 years.
Usually when you hear some crazy shit come out of a candidate’s mouth, you can assume there’s some demographic at whom it’s aimed. What Huntsman’s peddling can’t be popular with anyone.