pantslessprogressive:

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.