Huntsman Pulls Out, Revises Website

Jon Huntsman has withdrawn from the race and endorsed Mitt Romney. Hours before the formal statement, Michael Shear reported at The New York Times:

But Mr. Huntsman’s campaign, which struggled to raise money for expensive television ads, put many of his harshest attacks against Mr. Romney into clever and biting online videos that he posted to his campaign’s Web site and a corresponding YouTube channel.

Those videos (and a few television commercials) are now mostly gone, quickly yanked from public view as Mr. Huntsman prepares for an 11 a.m. endorsement of Mr. Romney.

...

A spokesman for the campaign, who asked not to be identified, said only that “we’ve removed a substantial amount of content from the Web, as campaigns often do when they end.”

But what was notable about Mr. Huntsman’s actions was the speed with which his operation moved.

It was also notable for the impact it very quickly had on news Web sites and blogs. Because many sites — including The New York Times — regularly embed videos hosted by campaigns directly on their Web sites, the Huntsman videos on those sites vanished, too.

That could provide an object lesson for news organizations hoping to create a permanent record of the back-and-forth of a campaign. If they want the videos to last, they must host them on their own servers.

But just in case, there’s always the other party — in this case, the Democrats — who will be eager to remind the public what was once there.

At 11:33 p.m. Sunday, the Democratic National Committee’s Rapid Response unit sent out a long list of Mr. Huntsman’s most vitriolic comments about Mr. Romney — lest anyone forget.

Newt's Surge Continues

From Public Policy Polling:

Newt Gingrich has taken the lead in PPP's national polling. He's at 28% to 25% for Herman Cain and 18% for Mitt Romney. The rest of the Republican field is increasingly looking like a bunch of also rans: Rick Perry is at 6%, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum each at 1%.

Compared to a month ago Gingrich is up 13 points, while Cain has dropped by 5 points and Romney has gone down by 4. Although a fair amount of skepticism remains about the recent allegations against Cain there is no doubt they are taking a toll on his image- his net favorability is down 25 points over the last month from +51 (66/15) to only +26 (57/31). What is perhaps a little more surprising is that Romney's favorability is at a 6 month low in our polling too with only 48% of voters seeing him favorably to 39% with a negative opinion.

From Bloomberg:

Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romneyand Newt Gingrich are in a dead heat as the top choices for Iowans likely to attend the Jan. 3 Republican presidential caucuses.

A Bloomberg News poll shows Cain at 20 percent, Paul at 19 percent, Romney at 18 percent and Gingrich at 17 percent among the likely attendees with the caucuses that start the nominating contests seven weeks away.

Cain: Before the Fall?

Gallup reports:

Herman Cain is the only candidate whose Positive Intensity Score has increased in comparison to Gallup's initial measurement earlier this year. In fact, each of the eight candidates Gallup tracks began with scores in the double digits, but now only three remain in that range.

The current results are based on Oct. 17-30 Gallup Daily tracking interviews with more than 1,500 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. The candidates' scores have stabilized in recent weeks, with no significant change in any candidate's positive intensity since last week. The stability may not persist, however, as Cain is attracting scrutiny for allegations of sexual harassment while he was president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. All interviews in the most recent field period were conducted before that story broke. Gallup's update on positive intensity next Tuesday will show whether the news is having an effect on Cain's image among Republicans.

Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Perry have seen their images deteriorate the most since earlier this year. Perry and Bachmann saw increases in their positive intensity scores at earlier points in the campaign and ranked among the leaders for a time before fading. Now Bachmann's score of 3 is lower than all other candidates' scores except Huntsman's -2. All of these candidates were less well-known at the time of their initial measurement but have made substantial gains in name recognition since.

Dems Try to Influence GOP Race

John Heilemann writes at New York:

In the midst of his controversial comments last week, Perry was hammered mercilessly by every liberal under the sun—except one. “I think that everybody who runs for president, it probably takes them a little bit of time before they start realizing that ... you’ve got to be a little more careful about what you say,” President Obama told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “But I’ll cut [Perry] some slack. He’s only been at it for a few days now.”

It’s no secret that the White House would prefer to run next fall against the likes of Perry (or, perish the thought, Bachmann) than Romney, the easier to paint Obama’s opponent as unacceptably outré and even scary. Less appreciated is how significant a player Obama’s reelection team—along with its allied outside groups—may be in the Republican primaries. By spending millions of dollars on anti-Romney ads and pointing out the similarities of his Massachusetts health-care plan to Obamacare at every opportunity, they may be able to function effectively as a pro-Perry “super pac”—and one with greater resources and media reach than anything Perry and his allies can muster. The irony here would be rich, for sure, and the effect bordering on perverse. But don’t kid yourself: The possibility of things playing out just this way is one of many nightmares that keep Romney’s advisers awake at night.

Alexander Burns writes at Politico that the DNC is highlighting Huntsman statements that will not help him among primary voters.

Jon Huntsman's appearance on ABC's "This Week," is winning applause from one of the two major political parties. It's not the one Huntsman's hoping to represent as its nominee for president.The Democratic National Committee just blasted out a greatest-hits reel from Huntsman's Sunday show appearance, wherein the former Utah governor criticized Rick Perry for being anti-science, Michele Bachmann for being unserious about the economy and Mitt Romney for being a flip-flopper.The DNC subject line: "Don't take our word for it ..."

The Note notes:

Huntsman, embracing the newfound strength of his Twitter voice, replied via tweet:

@JonHuntsman:.@thedemocrats - You missed 1. "Pres. Obama is too far left. His policies have failed." " Time to get economy back on track w/ new leadership.

Huntsman’s spokesman Tim Miller followed up with a statement to ABC News: "The DNC is shilling for a President who has failed on the most important issue to Americans - the economy and job creation. Governor Huntsman has a record of creating an environment for job growth and balancing budgets, President Obama has none. He's the one person who is offering serious solutions and has a record to back it up."

The "pick your opponent" strategy does not always work. In 1966, California governor Pat Brown tried to undercut GOP primary candidate George Christopher, in hopes that the party would nominate the other major candidate. Brown figured that the other guy was too extreme and would be easy pickings in the fall. His name was Ronald Reagan.

The Huntsman Difference

Jon Huntsman is different from the other GOP candidates.

On Twitter, 8/18/11:

To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.

Jacob Weiberg in Vogue:

People tend to see Mormonism as a binary, you-are-or-you-aren’t question, but Jon Huntsman is something more like a Reform Jew, who honors the spirit rather than the letter of his faith. He describes his family on his father’s side as “saloon keepers and rabble rousers,” and his mother’s side as “ministers and proselytizers.” The Huntsman side ran a hotel in Fillmore, Utah’s first capital, where they arrived with the wagon trains in the 1850s. They were mostly what Utahans call “Jack Mormons”—people with positive feelings about the Latter-Day Saints church who don’t follow all of its strictures. “We blend a couple of different cultures in this family,” he says.

You’d never hear a phrase like that from Romney, who has raised his sons as Mormons and sent them on missions. Nor would you see Tagg, Matt, Josh, Ben, or Craig Romney in a hotel bar, sipping a glass of wine, as you might see one of Huntsman’s adult children.

ABC News reports:

In an exclusive interview on "This Week," Huntsman said "there's a serious problem" with comments made by Perry in New Hampshire last week calling man-made global warming "a scientific theory that has not been proven and from my perspective is more and more being put into question" while claiming scientists have "manipulated data" on the issue.

"The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party -- the anti-science party, we have a huge problem," Huntsman told ABC News Senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper. "We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012."

"When we take a position that isn't willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said … about what is causing climate change and man's contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position," Huntsman added.

The Ames Debate

Before this weekend's straw poll in Ames, the Republican candidates debated on Fox last night. Some observations:

Mitt Romney showed coolness and gravitas. He deflected some questions, which frustrated reporters but denied ammo to opposition researchers. At one point, though, he lapsed into a small bit of economic demagoguery, referring to trading partners as "opponents."

Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann sniped at each other, leaving neither looking presidential.

Gingrich was fluent and passionate, but history was not his friend. He said that this weekend is the 30th anniversary of President Reagan's signing of the Kemp-Roth tax bill. Alas, how many voters know what Kemp-Roth was? In response to a question about divided government, he cited his experience in dealing with President Clinton -- but that experience was generally not a happy one.

Jon Huntsman still has work to do. (One small but important thing: he kept putting his head down, not a gesture of strength. Jaw out, governor!) Rich Galen writes:

Huntsman - PRE: Got off to a shaky start and hasn't altered the trajectory of his campaign since. This is the first "big" event since his announcement and he has to show potential donors and supporters he is up to this. His laid-back style might work, but being Perry Como on a stage with the Rolling Stones will present difficulties for him to show his stuff.

POST: Answered the questions easily, but without passion. Move over, Mr. Como.

As for gay issues, The Advocate reports:

Jon Huntsman stood by his support for civil unions and Rick Santorum expressed concern for gay rights in Iran, but for the most part, the Republican presidential debate unfolded as anticipated on Thursday as candidates opposed marriage equality.

"I think this nation can do a better job when it comes to equality,” said Huntsman, a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, in response to Fox News Channel anchor Chris Wallace, who asked whether his more moderate stance puts him in the “wrong party.” Still, he said that he believes in “traditional marriage” and, when pressed on whether his support for civil unions in the states makes him “right” while the other candidates and majority of Republican Iowa caucus goers polled are “wrong,” the candidate, who is not competing in the straw poll or the Iowa caucus next year, said, “They are not wrong.

...

In perhaps the most surprising twist of the debate related to LGBT rights, Santorum, who pledged to fight against marriage equality at home, criticized Iran during the foreign policy portion because it “tramples the rights of gays.”

Huntsman Trouble

Jon Huntsman has to deal with the kind of story that presidential candidates hate. Jonathan Martin reports at Politico:

A blistering internal feud in the Jon Huntsman presidential campaign is erupting into public view, with dueling camps trading charges and an exodus of campaign officials.

And now, a longtime family friend tells POLITICO that Huntsman’s wife and father fret that his presidential prospects have been threatened by the turmoil — and he places the blame on John Weaver, Huntsman’s controversial chief strategist.

Huntsman himself is so worried about the “drama,” as he calls it, that he’s taken a hands-on role in the restructuring, in hopes of rebounding from early missteps before it’s too late to improve his bottom-of-the-pack standing.

“I look forward to a future of less drama, more money and increasing contrasts with my opponents. We can win this thing,” Huntsman wrote in an email to the friend just hours after the resignation of his first campaign manager, Susie Wiles, became public July 21.

“Goodness will overcome the temporary difficulties and early turf-protecting within the campaign,” wrote Huntsman, adding: “I love you like a brother.”

The recipient of that email — David Fischer, who has known Huntsman since the 1980s and later worked for his father — shared with POLITICO behind-the-scenes details about Huntsman’s stumbling start.

Fischer is pushing back against a story in RealClearPolitics:

At a time when the staffers ought to be focused on doing something -- anything -- to help their candidate into the first tier of competitors, Fischer was a distraction. "He acted like a hall monitor," said one campaign aide. "There was a cloud on morale down there [in Orlando]." In fact, this staff member said, most aides kept their doors closed in the headquarters on the days that Fischer was in the office.

Huntsman on Bachmann

Male political figures have difficulty dealing with female politicians. In the case of Michele Bachmann, her own manager said that he is "every bit as attractive" as Sarah Palin. Pawlenty backer Vin Weber apologized for referring to her "sex appeal." And now, Jon Huntsman:

At New York, John Heilemann a transcript of the interview that started the micro-fracas. The questions are perhaps even more revealing than the answers:

JHEIL: What do you think of Michele Bachmann as a potential nominee?

JHUNT: I think it’s too hypothetical. I don’t think she gets the nomination. I think it’s impossible for her to get the nomination. I don’t think she’s gonna be able to bring the numbers together within the Republican tent to get the nomination. She’s off in one corner of the party. I think she’s excited that corner of the party. There are some elements that the media find appealing.

JHEIL: Irresistible.

JHUNT: Irresistible. And why not? She makes for good copy. And good photography. So why not take it for all you can get? But I think that’s way too speculative.

JHEIL: But unlike you, she is red in tooth and claw in her attacks on Obama. Do you think that in itself is disqualifying? Is it dangerous for the Republican party to dabble in such attacks?

JHUNT: You know, campaigns are about letting a thousand flowers blossom — bloom. So everybody gets to speak their mind and approach it from whatever angle of attack, and she’s chosen her own angle of attack. I don’t think it’s saleable in the end. It will certainly light up and ignite a corner of the Republican party, but not enough to do what needs to be done to win the nomination. But that’s an extension of her right to free speech.

JHEIL: But do you think she’s a serious person who should be taken seriously?

JHUNT: She’s an elected official. She’s a member of Congress.

JHEIL: Well, there are a lot of lunatics in Congress.

JHUNT: Clearly she should be taken seriously. She’s an elected official and elected officials should be taken seriously.

Huntsman To Reboot

Jon Huntsman is in low single digits in national polls and trails Romney even in Utah. The Washington Post reports:

In an attempt to jump-start his bid, aides said, Huntsman will highlight his conservative record as governor and directly attack the man viewed as his chief rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

On Thursday, Huntsman replaced his campaign manager, Susie Wiles, with Matt David, a longtime communications strategist steeped in the rapid-response pace of campaigns. In the 2004 campaign, David was one of the aides in the “war room” who devised tactics to attack Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic presidential nominee, and defend President George W. Bush, who was running for reelection.

Huntsman plans in the next few weeks to highlight what his campaign calls Romney’s weak record on job creation and inconsistency on key issues, aides said.

The campaign also began an initiative dubbed Conservatives for Huntsman to secure pledges of support from 5,000 conservative voters. That represents an attempt to redefine the candidate, whom many GOP voters know mostly as Obama’s former ambassador to China.

“Governor Huntsman is going to be more aggressive about message and strategy and defining differences with Obama and Romney,” spokesman Tim Miller said. “That’s a message that needs to get out in the coming weeks.”

The Salt Lake Tribune reports on one sign of the challenges facing Huntsman:

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman retooled his presidential campaign staff last week, elevating his communications director to campaign manager and promising a more aggressive effort. He needs it.

Huntsman has yet to make up much ground in national or early state polls, and he seems to be losing another test of support: Facebook likes.

Mitt Romney has racked up more than 1 million supporters on his Facebook page, Michele Bachmann has 430,634 who have signed on to her fan site. Herman Cain has 153,576 and Tim Pawlenty 103,518.

Huntsman? 9,571.

To be fair, Huntsman has only officially been a candidate for a little over a month and didn’t take over his Facebook fan site until right before he announced. His Republican opponents have had much more time. Still, he’s got a long way to go before he can catch up to their support level.

Huntsman Looks to Independents in NH & SC

Kasie Hunt writes in Politico:

Jon Huntsman sketched out a path to the Republican nomination Wednesday that transcends the conservative base in key early states, an exercise in needle-threading that hinges on his ability to capture a large swath of independent voters.

In an interview with POLITICO, Huntsman made clear that he plans to capitalize on election rules in New Hampshire and South Carolina that allow independent voters to cast ballots in the GOP presidential primary.

“These are wide open primaries, we forget that,” Huntsman said, predicting an independent turnout in New Hampshire as high as 40 percent. “[I] think, given the fluidity of the race in these early states, that we stand a pretty good chance, and we’re putting that to the test.”

The former Utah governor’s strategy is an attempt to make a virtue out of necessity. His moderate positions on the environment, immigration and civil unions —and his time as Barack Obama’s ambassador to China—are formidable obstacles to victory in a party where the energy is concentrated in the conservative core.

According to Huntsman’s blueprint, his early state performances could provide a springboard into Florida, where his campaign is headquartered and where he expects his wife Mary Kaye, an Orlando native, to be an asset.

Huntsman described his nomination scenario: “An aggressive approach to New Hampshire and South Carolina, cutting his wife loose in Florida, and crossing the finish line—I mean, I said that last part a little tongue-in-cheek,” Huntsman explained. “But when you look at open primaries in both New Hampshire and South Carolina, I think it’s a wide open affair, I really do.”

The open primary rules in New Hampshire, home to the nation’s first primary– and an electorate with more unaffiliated voters than Republicans – helped the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee, John McCain, salvage his campaign there. Huntsman has made no secret of New Hampshire’s importance to his campaign, saying he’ll skip the Iowa caucuses and setting up a head-to-head showdown there with frontrunner Mitt Romney.

In 2008, Romney led McCain among self-identified Republicans who voted in the NH primary, but McCain won because 37% of the participants were independents and they favored him 40-27%.

How Huntsman Finished Second at RLC

His supporters packed the house. Jonathan Martin shows an email by a New Orleans supporter of Huntsman:

Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:17:57 -0500

Subject: INSIDER INVITATION
From: xxx@xxxx
To: xxx@xxxx

To Team Bonin,

I have a very special invitation to all, regardless of party
affiliation. I am hosting a free insider's look at the Republican
Southern Leadership Conference this Saturday.

Anyone who is interested will meet at Lakeview Harbor at 9:00 am, we
will board a free bus for the conference at 9:30 sharp, free tickets
to the conference are included, we will go to the conference, meet
with an insider from a presidential campaign, participate in
conference, participate in a straw poll, then head back to Lakeview
harbor for refreshments. There is no cost involved and it does not
matter what your party affiliation is. The whole thing should last
between two to three hours.

I have a limited number of invitations and it will be first come,
first served. Anyone who is interested should reply to this email
immediately with your name, cell number, email address, and
city/parish you are from.

Sent from Brett A. Bonin's iPhone

Rush v. Huntsman

Rush Limbaugh is less than enthusiastic about the Huntsman roll-out:

Jon Huntsman announced his candidacy today for the Republican presidential nomination, and he took a page from the book of the esteemed and the great Ronaldus Magnus. He went out there and made his announcement in front of the Statue of Liberty, and he's got a logo (a red rectangle with his name, "Jon Huntsman;" and then white with "JonHuntsman.com").* and somebody observed to me that it looks like a designer label that you might find in clothes. His logo does, his icon.

But it's interesting. I'll give you a little hint, a setup. He channels Ronaldus Magnus, does Huntsman. He basically says, "Look, we gotta go out there and we have to respect President Obama! I deeply respect President Obama. I am not going to run down anyone's reputation," and, by the way, the chattering classes both on our side and the left are going nuts here. I have a little media montage of the State-Run Media orgasmic over Huntsman making his announcement at the same place as Reagan frequently appeared. But it just illustrates exactly what we were talking about yesterday.

The Republican Party is still convinced that in order to secure the support of independents, that they have to be boring. They have to be serious and Milquetoast and cannot be confrontational, cannot be partisan, cannot go into attack mode. Somehow this is going to cause the independents to get nervous and send them running right back to Obama. Now, of course, that's flat-out BS, it's totally wrong. The elections of last November demonstrate that in a real world, real life example. But then there's also this. We're told -- and this is a trap, by the way, the left puts this out. It's designed to get us to be boring. It's designed to get us not to contrast ourselves with the left.

Actually the website is jonhunstmanjr.com, which redirects to www.jon2012.com. The website jonhuntsman.com belongs to somebody who opposes Huntsman, as Holly Bailey explained earlier this year:

Jon Huntsman may be staffing up ahead of a potential 2012 run, but President Obama's soon-to-be-ex ambassador to China apparently forgot about one very important task for any likely presidential candidate: Buying his own web domain name.

Visitors to JonHuntsman.com are now taken to a page that hosts the former Utah governor's so-called "love letter" to Obama that someone leaked to The Daily Caller last week.

The letter is posted against a pink backdrop dotted with light pink hearts. Meanwhile, whoever is behind the page also created a heart graphic for the site modeled after Obama's 2008 campaign logo.

According to WHOIS, the directory of web domain owners, someone anonymously purchased the domain in late January--weeks after Huntsman put out word that he was considering running for the GOP nomination in 2012.

Huntsman Announces

Anti-Mormon Prejudice is a Problem for Huntsman and Romney

Gallup reports on a disturbing number:

Though the vast majority of Americans say they would vote for their party's nominee for president in 2012 if that person happens to be a Mormon, 22% say they would not, a figure largely unchanged since 1967.

The question is mainly relevant to the Republican and independent vote in 2012, given that the current Republican front-runner, Mitt Romney, is an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church, and that another Mormon, former Utah Gov. and former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, may enter the race for the GOP nomination as early as next week.

The new Gallup poll, conducted June 9-12, finds nearly 20% of Republicans and independents saying they would not support a Mormon for president. That is slightly lower than the 27% of Democrats saying the same.
...
The stability in U.S. bias against voting for a Mormon presidential candidate contrasts markedly with steep declines in similar views toward several other groups over the past half-century, including blacks, women, Catholics, and Jews. The last time as many as 22% of Americans said they would not vote for any of these groups (the same level opposed to voting for a Mormon today) was 1959 for Catholics, 1961 for Jews, 1971 for blacks, and 1975 for women. As noted, opposition to voting for each of these has since tapered off to single digits.

Part of the problem is that mainstream media pundits can get away with blatant anti-Mormon bigotry, as Lawrence O'Donnell did in 2007:

A Top Bush Guy for Huntsman

Mark Halperin reports at Time that C. Boyden Gray is endorsing Huntsman and will chair his policy team. Halperin calls the endorsement "a semiotic dog whistle for a lot of big-time bundlers."

Gray's public role could draw attacks over the issue of cap-and-trade. As The Smithsonian reported a couple of years ago, Gray was an early advocate of a version of cap-and-trade:

EDF president Fred Krupp phoned Bush's new White House counsel—Boyden Gray—and suggested that the best way for Bush to make good on his pledge to become the "environmental president" was to fix the acid rain problem, and the best way to do that was by using the new tool of emissions trading. Gray liked the marketplace approach, and even before the Reagan administration expired, he put EDF staffers to work drafting legislation to make it happen. The immediate aim was to break the impasse over acid rain. But global warming had also registered as front-page news for the first time that sweltering summer of 1988; according to Krupp, EDF and the Bush White House both felt from the start that emissions trading would ultimately be the best way to address this much larger challenge.

But Gray has been highly critical of recent cap-and-trade legislation, as he wrote in 2010:

As noted, the White House and the sponsors of the Waxman-Markey legislation passed last year prominently asserted that their proposals were based on the successful acid rain cap and trade program by the CAAA in 1990. But the acid rain reduction and other successes based on it did not involve the impossibly complicated $1 trillion auction/tax/allowance reallocation scheme that Waxman-Markey features, as a result of the political logrolling necessary to secure the close 219-212 House vote.

To the contrary, all previous cap and trade programs have been based on an annual reduction of allowances initially allocated on the basis of an average of previous emissions that were well documented -- a simple formula that has been totally abandoned by Waxman-Markey.

Gray was also an advocate for the disabled. Mary Lou Breslin, cofounder of a disability-rights group, recalls that Gray first started working on the issue when he was in the Office of the Vice President during the 1980s:

But at this early stage, in the sort of '81 to '83 period, his general counsel was C. Boyden Gray. Boyden Gray played bridge with Evan Kemp, and we were hanging out at Evan Kemp's house. Basically, we made friends--"friends" is a reasonable thing to say, although there's a lot of backlash about hanging out with the Republicans these days--we developed a personal relationship with Boyden Gray. Over a period of years, and certainly at the very beginning, Boyden got convinced that disability issues were legitimate civil rights issues and was very influential in reversing the task force's intent to deregulate 504 particularly. He had a very big hand in running interference between the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Justice and the task force, and he remained Bush's general counsel when he became president.

So the early seeds that were planted with Boyden Gray in terms of disability as a legitimate civil rights issue were personal experiences. He sat around the table with Bob and Pat and Evan, and to a lesser extent, me, and we got to hear the stories about everybody's experiences growing up with disability. Evan got out of law school and applied to seventy-five jobs or something and couldn't get a job because he had a disability. I'm sure it was because he used a wheelchair. Nobody would hire him. Boyden was moved by that, because they're both good old Southern boys and they both went to law school. He began to understand what that might mean. He was developing a perception of these issues, and that single contact and that shift--not alone, by any means; there are four or five other absolutely critical things that happened--but that was an incredibly important contact.

Teaser Web Ad from Huntsman

6 Days from Jon Huntsman Jr. on Vimeo.

Huntsman v. Romney

Jason Horowitz writes in The Washington Post:

A showdown between Huntsman, 50, and Romney, 63, would likely be the most bitter of the coming election. The respective former governors of Utah and Massachusetts have vast fortunes, silver tongues and great hair. They are also distant cousins, descended from a Mormon apostle who played a key role in the faith's founding. The two men enjoyed the early support of powerful and devout fathers and performed the church's missionary work - Romney in France during the Vietnam War and Huntsman in Taiwan. For years, the clans remained close, until the two scions sought to lead the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, a coveted post that promised to boost political prospects. The Games went to Romney, and the family bonds froze over when Huntsman endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over Romney in the 2008 presidential contest.

Huntsman 2012?

Newsweek reports on the ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, Jr.:

“You know, I’m really focused on what we’re doing in our current position,” he says. “But we won’t do this forever, and I think we may have one final run left in our bones.” Asked whether he is prepared to rule out a run in 2012 (since it would require him to campaign against his current boss), he declines to comment.

The winking response—about as close to a hat-in-ring announcement as you’ll get from a sitting member of the incumbent’s administration—could just be a hollow cry for attention. But sources close to Huntsman (who requested anonymity to speak freely without his permission) say that during his December trip to the U.S., he met with several former political advisers in Washington and Salt Lake City to discuss a potential campaign. “I’m not saying he’s running,” says one supporter who has worked with him in the past. “But we’re a fire squad; if he says the word, we can get things going fast.” What’s more, Huntsman tells NEWSWEEK that when he accepted the ambassadorial appointment, he promised his family they would “come up for air” sometime in 2010 to decide how much longer they would stay in Beijing. “I’m not announcing anything at all,” he says. But he sure seems to be hinting.

James Fallows is skeptical:

Huntsman is part of the Obama Administration. He is right in the middle of dealings with America's most important foreign-policy partner/challenge. So in the GOP Primaries, how exactly is he going to out-anti-Obama anyone else in the field, given that he has served Obama (and, yes, the country) so loyally? The retorts from all the other Republicans are almost too easy. "If Ambassssadorrr Huntsman is so concerned about the Obama threat to America, then why,...?"

And if he got through that process, he would run against his current commander-in-chief .... how? And why? What is the issue of principle so important that it compels him to challenge Obama's continuation in office, but has not justified any disagreement while he's serving now? "Huntsman 2016" would be a very logical inference from his current position. "Huntsman 2012" would require suspension of basic laws of politics and common sense.