I will not be attending this year’s convention, nor any Republican convention in the future, until the party focuses on a bigger, bolder, more confident future for the United States — a future based on problem solving, inclusiveness, and a willingness to address the trust deficit, which is every bit as corrosive as our fiscal and economic deficits… .Former Utah governor and presidential candidate Jon Huntsman • Throwing a bit of shade on the modern-day GOP, which several months ago he was trying to woo. This isn’t a novel turn for Huntsman, really — despite endorsing his fellow well-coiffed Mormon, Mitt Romney, he hasn’t exactly been a model campaign surrogate; about a week after the endorsement he went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to proclaim that “gone are the days where the Republican party used to put forward big, bold visionary stuff,” and suggested he’d like to see the rise of a third political party. Rest assured, that’s not on-message surrogacy — we think Huntsman is being true to a conviction here. source (via • follow)
A couple observations from Buzzfeed’s recent Jon Huntsman story on the former presidential candidate loosely comparing the Grand Ol’ Party to communist China: this is one of those news items where I find more interesting news than the lede buried within the story.
First, Huntsman admits caving to peer pressure at the Iowa Debate, when he raised his hand confirming, along with all other candidates on the stage, that he would not accept a 10-to-1 spending cuts to tax increase deal:
“What went through my head was if I veer at all from my pledge not to raise any taxes…then I’m going to have to do a lot of explaining,” he explained. “What was going through my mind was ‘don’t I just want to get through this?’”
That decision, Huntsman said, “has caused me a lot of heartburn.”
Presidential pledges: my favorite “don’t I just want to get through this?” facade of the 2012 race.
Secondly, this Buzzfeed article proves Mary Jaye Huntsman, Jon Huntsman’s wife, is pretty awesome:
Huntsman jokingly blamed his failed candidacy in part on his wife, Mary Kaye, who told him she’d leave him if he abandoned his principles.
“She said if you pandered, if you sign any of those damn pledges, I’ll leave you,” Huntsman recounted.
We were actually keeping an eye on Zeke Miller’s livetweeting of this event last night, and the fact that, in his story, he focused on the China quote over the 10-1 thing is a little disappointing. Like PP, we found that way more interesting.
There is — there are questions about the validity of the science, evidenced by one university over in Scotland recently. I think the onus is on the scientific community to provide more in the way of information, to help clarify the situation.Jon Huntsman • Betraying his earlier stance on climate change, which had won him some respect in environmentally-minded quarters. To be clear, this is in stark contradiction to the Jon Huntsman of months past. For instance, in August: “To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” Honestly, we’re surprised by this. Huntsman’s prior stance impressed us, despite a very skeptical GOP base. We thought his conviction on this issue was pretty strong, especially as he voiced it during a televised debate, but now it seems he’s flip-flopped to add juice to a recent polling uptick. source (via • follow)
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