Ryan Streeter
Follow Ryan on Twitter
The question can be taken in either sense of its two meanings: first, as in which office is he seeking, and second, WHY is he running?
Jon Huntsman is a talented statesman, and by all accounts, a good man. He just seems to have picked the wrong time in history to be running for President. It’s very hard to answer the question in either of its two senses.
On the first question, he is running in a heated Republican primary with voters that are 10 percentage points more conservative than in 2008. He expressed his support for civil unions in the last debate, which was politically courageous if not a bit suicidal. He stood on his principles. But then, his climate-change-evolution-tweet stunt seemed an intentional effort to alienate voters: you don't have to agree with a large cross section of voters, but you don't need to unnecessarily step out of your way to disagree with them either. His antics have won him the praise of people like MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, who took joy in upholding Huntsman as the one adult Republican in the room – and gave Huntsman coverage sure to alienate even more voters.
It’s simply not clear why anyone in their right mind would be giving Huntsman money right now when there is, with each passing day, no path to the nomination. He doesn’t seem to be running for President. What he’s running for is unclear. The vice presidency doesn’t even seem in the cards.
On the second question, what is the objective of his campaign? Why did he get in? What is it that he offers that the others don’t? Perry’s got the job growth, Romney’s got the private sector experience, Pawlenty had a conservative record in a blue state and a short-lived, gusty attempt to deliver tough truths in unfriendly places, Paul has the gold standard and monetary policy, Michele Bachmann has embodied Tea Party values. Huntsman hasn’t done a good job of explaining what he’s about. He was actually a good governor, but no one knows what he did. Why he's running - what he's running for - is largely unknown.
Which makes this article in The Hill today interesting: “Huntsman says if elected he would call on the wealthy to sacrifice.” The headline was obviously written to get the right all a-twitter with more “you see? He’s just like Obama!” charges on the right.
But the report of his PBS appearance has his saying he would call on all people to sacrifice. And with regard to the rich, he was saying they should be prepared to see their entitlements reduced or eliminated (through means-testing) and their taxes to change – even go up – if we get tax reform that ends loopholes that currently give wealthy people a disproportionate advantage.
If Jon Huntsman were running for these reasons – to be the Tom Coburn-esque candidate in the 2012 field – then he would have something interesting. Maybe he should think about that.
Surely the idea is to be the liberal veep who balances the ticket. He can't run explicitly for Vice President, after all.
I hate that kind of thing. I so admire Bush for picking Cheney and giving him real responsibility.
Posted by: Dawn Carpenter | August 26, 2011 at 05:40 PM