BYRON YORK: Jon Huntsman: A Boutique Candidacy That Didn’t Sell. “Huntsman’s problem was that, whatever his position on some key issues, he sent out political and cultural signals that screamed NPR, and not Fox News, that screamed liberal, and not conservative. Even though conservatives agreed with Huntsman on many things, they instinctively sensed he wasn’t their guy. It wasn’t hard for them to figure out.” Huntsman was the Republican candidate for Republicans ashamed of being Republicans. Shockingly, there aren’t that many people like that who vote in the Republican primaries.