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| Saturday, May 25, 2013 |
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Why wouldn’t he stick around through January? Are they missing his help running the family chemical corporation and need him to quit the political hobby and start getting some work done? |
Probably after the New Hampshire primary, although he may decide to stick around through Florida. Like many others, I think he is angling for the 2016 nomination, which requires him to position himself as the Republican who can compromise (the opposite of what Republican primary voters are looking for in 2012). Assuming that an uncompromising Republican nominee gets clobbered by a happy-to-compromise Obama, 2016 primary voters might be more willing to look at somebody like Huntsman. At any rate, that strategy requires him to raise his profile nationwide and build ground games in the early states that he can reactivate in 2016. A place on the debate stage in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida should be enough motivation to keep him going that long. |
#2, I don’t think Huntsman has any chance of being a nominee on any national Republican ticket at any point. The secret is that he sees the world different from the typical R primary voter. This dooms him since the R base sees this as well and won’t consider voting for him. #1 He may hang on till he gets a tiny vote in NH. I think he will throw in the towel sooner. |
I think that George Will said it best about Huntsman and the base of the party he wants to vote for him. |
I seem to remember McCain’s chances looking laughably abysmal this time 4 years ago. nobody thought he had a ghost of a chance until well into primary season. |
I think Huntsman will hang on as long as people keep writing big enough checks to make it worth his while to continue to run for office. |
bbell, this kind of prediction is beneath even you. You are saying that Huntsman has no chance of ever being the nominee? How is it that you know what klind of nominee Republicans will want next month, let alone next election? Your arrogance is astonishing. |
Yep MCQ, I got a Texas Brisket that says that I am dead on the money. The guy is a RINO and does not appeal to the base at all. What segment of the party is he after? The segment he appears to be after left in the 1970′s along with Nelson Rockefeller. That is why he is not even registering 1% in the realclearpolitics poll averages. They are not even including him when they poll!! |
I think he’s all about name recognition for 2016. So he’ll at least wait until a major debate before dropping out. But as many thought he didn’t have a chance with a combination of Mormonism and moderateness during the tea party peak. I think he’d be a fantastic candidate but with the current focus of the party he’s pointless. I’ll give him credit for managing the media well in his early days. But he just doesn’t attract the base at all right now. It’s angry populist time right now. |
BTW – I don’t understand the RINO label. I think it says something about what people are defining Republican as. As for being a Democrat how many Democrats supported the Ryan budget? Heck, if you brought Ronald Reagan out half the tea party would call him a RINO if they didn’t know who he was. |
Huntsman is running for 2016. You know, the election after Obama has finished his second term (having destroyed Romney in the 2012 elections) and there’s a wide-open Republican primary, chastened after 8 years. |
I agree that he is either running for 2016 or maybe running for VP. VP would only be possible if the GOP chooses “not Romney” as their candidate. |
I don’t think the GOP wil be as extreme in 2016 as they are now, that’s what he is running for. He has great appeal to moderates, similar to the support McCain had three years ago (not two years ago). He’s the one Republican who I’d consider right now, and I voted Democrat last election. Whether someone can win by getting moderates from each party instead of the base remains to be seen. I’d guess not, but I think he’ll be a strong contender in four years. He’s very appealing to people that don’t like the sound of screeching fingernails on a chalkboard, which is what Bachmann and Santorum represent to me. It’s not like the other candidates are running wild with popularity. The most popular candidate in some polls (Perry) hasn’t even declared yet. |
It is important to realize that McCain was not a conservative candidate, but he was the only moderate/liberal candidate (amazing, that, in retrospect) in a field of conservatives. He did not appeal to the majority of primary voters, but he managed to win a number of pluralities while the others split the other vote. Huntsman is probably planning on a similar approach, one that will work if Romney is hamstrung, but not conclusively beaten by anyone else on the right. |
I detest the term “RINO” and I don’t even know what “squish RINO” means. I suspect it’s something that bbell made up or is copying wrong from somewhere else. Huntsman is a smart guy with a lot of smart people around him. He’s running this campaign for a particular purpose. That purpose is almost certainly not to be the nominee in 2012. Bbell’s predictions notwithstanding, Huntsman will be a player in this country’s political arena in the future. And you can be sure of one other thing: he’s not running for vice-anything. |
We have a brand of propane locally called “Blue Rhino” and it predates RINO — but is so perfect ;) At least in terms of making me smile. At least Rino is better than DINO. |
I agree with bbell. Huntsman is a sideshow at best. While it is very early and a lot can happen, Huntsman isn’t among possibilities for the Republican primary voters. An an independent so I don’t have a dog in that fight, but I don’t see anything Huntsman is saying as even remotely energizing to the Republican base. I personally wouldn’t vote for him on a bet. I watched his governing practices up close and personal here in Utah. The size of Utah’s government expanded massively under his watch and with his constant encouragement, taxes were increased and his practices squandered a robust surplus. My biggest problem with him and why I believe Republicans won’t vote for him is that he stands for nothing. “Let’s all get along and agree that we’re both wrong” just won’t play well in either party. What is his vision? What is his economic strategy and stance? I don’t see any. |
Its the inability of Huntsman to connect with the primary voters that dooms him. One of the writers at National Review went looking for Huntsman supporters in Iowa and only found 1 person. The voter was a Dem and was not voting in the R primary anyway!! |
Bbell – good post. Huntsman would be a better candidate in 2016 for the Dems… He is sort of where Hatch was a few years ago when he “ran” for President… |
I don’t know much about Jon Huntsman–I have this feeling I’m not going to need to–but I am curious about what makes him a RINO and why so many Democrats like him. I just don’t see it. |
Democrats like Huntsman not because he is secretly one of them, but simply because he does not view them as the spawn of Satan. |
Huntsman is a moderate. Moderate Democrats like him because he is intelligent and rational. Moderate Republicans like him for the same reason. Idealogues and extremists of any stripe are always going to hate guys like Huntsman and predict his downfall. Hence this post. |
LL hit the nail on the head. Moderates and Democrats like Huntsman because he has accomplished things without being an extremist, and because he usually doesn’t feel the need to vilify his opponent like other candidates (Palin and Newt come to mind) usually do. RINO is a dumb distinction, I have a feeling if everyone that had been labeled a RINO was kicked out of the GOP they’d only have about a quarter of the House and five people in the Senate right now. He’s definitely a Republican, Utah Republicans loved him while he was Governor, it’s only now that they’re deciding he was a RINO all those years they fawned over him. No shock there, many of the people that loved Bush are saying the same thing now. Consistency hasn’t been strong with the GOP now that they have to pretend to care about the Tea Party. |
I’m just going to come right out and stop pretending. I hate the illiterate pestilential vermin that call themselves the tea party. The sooner those vile little moronic cockroaches melt back into the smelly public bathroom they crawled out of, the better off the country will be. The have infested the republican party like bedbugs and they will probably have to be exterminated. They are the worst thing to happen to the republican party since Nixon. |
Jjohnsen, your description of the Utah Republican experience with Huntsman sounds a bit like Nevada’s former governor from 1999-2007, the late Kenny Guinn. Guinn was a pillar of the community for decades before running for governor. Though a business-oriented Republican, he had also been school superintendent, and wasn’t particularly partisan. Right after his 2002 landslide re-election with 68% of the vote, he pushed through the biggest tax increase Nevada ever had. Gov. Guinn may have been right that that was what the state needed, but it is also completely understandable that a large chunk of the Republican party was aghast wondering, “What kind of Republican governor is for huge tax increases?” |
I found a poll that included Huntsman. Its from Florida. REGISTERED REPUBLICANS……. Perry 13% 15% 11% 16% Huntsman gets 1% in this poll. I say he is likely to drop out soon. |
John, but Huntsman didn’t push through the biggest tax increase in Utah’s history. In fact for the highest earners he made the tax rate go down, you’d think the Tea Party would be all over that nonsense. And Utah Republicans liked him while he was in office just fine, it wasn’t until recently that he became a RINO. What he did in office didn’t change, and he left with high ratings, so almost overnight he went from a Governor with very high ratings in a conservative state to a “RINO”. His actions didn’t change, Tea Partiers just got bored and are looking for the extreme. |
bbell, the top placer in that poll hasn’t even declared. I think it’s a bit early to start picking winners and losers. |
Saying he’s a “moderate” isn’t helpful. Saying someone’s “moderate” is like saying someone is nice. In fact, that’s usually what people mean when they say “moderate.” It’s not a political distinction. I haven’t been able to find anything substantive on Jon Huntsman (not that I’ve looked really hard–but you’d think it wouldn’t be that difficult). I still have no idea how he would govern. But it doesn’t look like I’ll ever need to know. |
Hey Rebecca, you don’t know what you’re talking about. It is in fact a political term, and it has pretty obvious meaning: moderate: noun a person who is moderate in opinion or opposed to extreme views and actions, especially in politics or religion. 7.( usually initial capital letter ) a member of a political party advocating moderate reform. If you can’t find substantive info on Huntsman, it’s because you haven’t even tried. You think he might be in Wkipedia? Gee, I dunno: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Huntsman,_Jr. Think he has a Time magazine article about him? I wonder: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2071150,00.html What about the New York Times? http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/why-huntsman-should-be-taken-seriously/ Washington Post? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/who-is-jon-huntsman/2011/06/21/AGt5oQeH_blog.html Does he have a website with info? How about one with a daily blog? http://www.jon2012.com/hblog Or a facebook page? http://www.facebook.com/jonhuntsmanjr Yeah, you’re right. It’s pretty hard to find out any information on Huntsman. If you’re retarded. |
Look at how he governed Utah. That is considered moderate in a Conservative state. It also means he doesn’t feel like he has to toe the party line and was willing to take ideas he thought would help the state, even if they weren’t necessarily exactly what the state or national party expected of a Republican Governor. Moderate seems like a pretty simple political distinction to me, I don’t know why it would be hard to understand. Doesn’t want to totally get rid of SS, but would like to see some reforms. Isn’t extreme in one way or the other. You can find a moderate position for almost any political fight. Huntsman wasn’t moderate in everything, but I’d consider him not extreme like a Bachmann. The fact that he doesn’t refer to the President in the same way a Palin or Santorum does is a good example of moderation instead of extremism. |
The tea party is already dying: “A CBS News/New York Times poll this week shows that only 20 percent of Americans and 41 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of the tea party, down from 26 percent and 59 percent, respectively, in April. Just 18 percent of Americans now view themselves as tea party supporters, compared with 31 percent who did immediately after the November 2010 elections.” At this rate, by next year, it will have faded enough that a moderate like Huntsman will have better much poll numbers. That’s not to say that he will win the nomination, but again, that’s not his goal. If he gets enough traction that he starts out ahead of the other GOP contenders in 2016, he will have acheived his goal. I am impressed with Huntsman in one respect: He is not bending to suit the tea party at all. He knows that it is a reactionary and probably short-lived phenomenon. Hatch is becoming a joke by trying so hard to court the tea party, but after what happened to Bennett he has a lot more to fear. |
That’s great news, MCQ. I had a family member do an internship in Senator Hatch’s office recently. He said tea partiers monopolized the phone line and were every bit as rigid and uncompromising as their opponents portray them. |
I saw the Republican Party commit suicide in California in 1994 and it was not pretty. Governor Pete Wilson was running for reelection. He tied his campaign to Prop 187, one that would deny state services to illegal immigrants. He overwhelmingly got the angry white male vote and won. The next year I was in a small group with the chair of the state Democratic Party. I asked about the effect of the Wilson campaign on California politics. I expected a “downer ” of an answer. Instead he was almost exstatic. Simply put, the Latino vote had started to go more Republican. No more. Several of Wilsons campaign ads just flat out sounded racist (for example a TV ad that stated “they just keep coming”) The Knuckle Dragging side of the Republican Party added its own racism to his cause. As the Chairman said, the Latino population in California is growing and voting in higher percentages. He finished by saying the Republicans will be unable to recover–they just do not relate that well to people they see as their gardners and maids. Only two Republicans have won statewide races since then. One because the Democratic opponent was truly terrible (even I voted for the Republican) and the other was Arnold. I see the Republican Party in many states lacing their beverages with a little Palin Pekoe or Mike Lee darjeeling. I can easily see in some swing states a similar result to California happening to them, as people reject the siren song of Michelle Bachmann and others like her |
I dont think the Tea Party will lose favor in Utah soon enough to save Hatch, but I think they’ll be a footnote before 2015, paving the way for someone like Huntsman. |
Hatch needs to go regardless of the tea party. He has a lot of seniority, and you hate to lose that influence, but he’s a relic of a bygone era. The only question is whether we can get someone decent to replace him. I think Stan may be right that the GOP is killing itself by infection with the tea party. The backlash that is coming could put the GOP on life support for years. But I think it’s more likely that candidates like Huntsman will rescue the party from the extremists and reclaim the majority of conservative voters before 2016, as jj says. That’s my hope, anyway. |
Fred Karger, the openly gay GOP candidate, scored the same percentage as Huntsman in the latest Harris Poll. I wonder who Southern Republicans would be least likely to vote for, a moderate Mormon or a moderate gay man? |
How ironic that Huntsman and Karger scored the same percentage. Karger has relentlessly pursued and pilloried the Mormon Church over Prop 8. I actually like Huntsman–although my favorable opinion would be the kiss of death to Republicans and most Mormons–since I am a Democrat and a homosexual–and thus on the right hand of Satan, at least according to my aunt. The one thing everyone is ignoring is that both Romney and Huntsman are doomed–unless the Republican Party frees itself from the deathgrip of the Tea Party nutcases, and the Evangelical loonies who hate Mormons only slightly less than they hate homosexuals. |
The real reason Republicons hate Huntsman was that he said yes to Obama and went to China. |
I don’t care when he drops out and I suspect most of American feels the same way. |
bbell, when are you going to send me your Texas brisket? It’s been a couple of months and Huntsamn is still in the race. You were obviously wrong. Be a man and admit it and pay up. |
