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)
The Brookings Institution, a progressive policy and research group, announced that Huntsman will join as a distinguished fellow. The former Governor of Utah, and ambassador for the Bush and Obama administrations, has since been writing a weekly column for The Hill. Huntsman, who bowed out of the 2012 Republican nomination process back in January, has also endorsed one-time rival Mitt Romney’s bid for the presidency. (Photo via abjam77) source
It was a chance encounter. Today I was walking down Broadway with a colleague from law school to meet our professor at her office. As I crossed 54th Street, I glanced to my right and saw Jon Huntsman walking toward us. We reached the corner a half step before him, and I managed to say, “Good…
A little late in reblogging this, but as you’ll read, it’s worth it. Jon Huntsman was a good guy in a bad situation this year as far as the primaries go. Let’s hope he can move past a crazy 2012 and maybe come back strong.
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.
People have asked me why I disliked Jon Huntsman. Out of all the other candidates — not the warmongering Rick Santorum, not the flip-flopping Mitt Romney, and not the laughably corrupt Newt Gingrich — Huntsman is the only one I truly and personally disliked. I might disagree with Santorum’s insane…
Another (more negative) take on Huntsman. Key line: “Huntsman has shown himself to be a turncoat: to his party, to his president, and to his own campaign. That is despicable and his actions are indications of a great deficit in character and integrity.”
Today our campaign for the presidency ends, but our campaign for a better and more trustworthy America continues.Jon Huntsman • Speaking at the announcement of his campaign’s suspension Monday morning.
(Source: CNN)
Happening now: Jon Huntsman’s suspending his campaign. ”Today I am suspending my campaign for the presidency.” He just endorsed Mitt Romney.
Jon Huntsman’s campaign was a better idea than it was a reality, and the idea was John Weaver’s.
Weaver, a rangy, 52-year old Texan has a storied and controversial career in Republican politics, and now an uncertain future. And the Huntsman campaign is the latest and purest version of a strategy that he’s been pressing since he was at John McCain’s right hand in 2000: A Republican campaign that embraces the mainstream media, sets itself against elements of conservative dogma, and builds a coalition of moderate Republicans and independents that – if it could only survive the primary – would be formidable in a general election. The campaign’s birth in baroque intrigue and its high-level infighting are also Weaver signatures.
Weaver also spearheaded a much-more-successful (but not a winning) candidate in John McCain, and Huntsman’s failure to get off the ground led to much criticism from pundits on the right. Read more here.
Jon Huntsman’s campaign was never going to work. He finally realized that and will drop out to give Mitt Romney, for whom he exhibited no small amount of animosity during the debates, his support. In New Hampshire he preposterously told supporters that a weak third place finish, in a state in which he had campaigned almost exclusively, was his “ticket to ride” to South Carolina. But it wasn’t, just as his campaign wasn’t based on any natural constituency or rationale.The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin • Offering up her harshly-worded take on why Jon Huntsman’s leaving the race. “If it was the GOP presidential nomination he sought,” she continued, “it was of a GOP in some parallel universe created by the press in which the darn Tea Party never arose, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was still speaker of the House and Republicans yearned for an isolationist foreign policy even to the left of President Obama’s.” While the conservative Rubin clearly has her opinions, there is a grain of truth here. Huntsman’s a likable guy, but this was not a campaign that worked in his favor.
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Great for the general election. Not so great for the primaries. Jon Huntsman was long the odd man out in the 2012 election, the guy with just enough support in most polls to show up at most of the debates, but never enough to be the focus of them. While his politics found fans (particularly his early pro-science stance, which stood out from the rest of the GOP and he later flip-flopped on), he was attempting to be the un-cola in a year when every other candidate in the race was trying to prove exactly how conservative they were. Huntsman will end his campaign Monday (a day after winning an endorsement from The State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper) and will offer his support to Mitt Romney, a guy he didn’t hide his animosity towards. Here’s why:
(photo by Gage Skidmore)
Huntsman put it like this to CNN: “If you look at the numbers now, we’re in a strong confident position.” There are three tickets out of New Hampshire, and he has one, or something like that. Huntsman is currently polling at a fairly-solid third place, far behind Romney but within shouting distance of second-place Ron Paul.
Huntsman wants to bring term limits to Congress, to help end the never-ending cycle of politicians becoming lobbyists. This should be something everyone on this stage should support. Rick Perry goes further: He suggests cutting salaries and making members of Congress have day jobs — with Congress being a part-time deal. Which sounds a bit like pandering.
Huntsman on working for Obama: “I will always put my country first.” …Mitt’s response: Do that by working under conservative principles. Huntsman’s response: “This nation is divided because of attitudes like that.”
Regarding non-superficial stuff: Huntsman had trouble answering David Gregory’s question of three programs to cut. But he supported the Ryan plan.
EDIT: Sorry, we messed this one up. Thanks to Aheram for pointing it out.
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Comment of the day re: Huntsman suspending campaign
Tags: huntsman dropping out jon huntsman jon huntsman quits race comment of the day from thischarmingsir-deactivated2013 66 • Permalinkthischarmingsir:
So true. The pundit class has been quick to put the dagger in him, but the fact of the matter is, he was trying to do something slightly different — play serious in a GOP race full of wacky hijinks — and he didn’t get a lot of respect for it. That’s a bummer. Jennifer Rubin was right last night, but she was right in a way that reflected how wrong everything around Huntsman is, not Huntsman himself.
(Source: CNN)