…a few dust bunnies here and there? So Jon Huntsman is officially in the race for president. I’m duty bound to mention it, I suppose.
But honestly, I don’t see the rationale that gets Huntsmania into the White House. He’s a former governor, which Republicans tend to elect, but there are at least two former governors already in the race and a couple more considering getting in, and all have much more mojo than Huntsman. His kickoff at the Statue of Liberty was meant to echo Reagan’s 1980 kickoff, but Reagan never worked for Carter, and Hunstman is no Reagan. Huntsman is a gray moderate in a time when the Republican electorate is looking for sharp, bright lines.
So I don’t get the Huntsman run at all. Who is his constituency, the gutless “No Labels” crowd? GOP liberals? Who has a feevah and Huntsman is the only cure? I have no idea. I know he did well in a straw poll the other day, but those things are always bought. They’re not reliable at all. If they were, Ron Paul would be president today.
He’s not, and Huntsman won’t be. But hey, those motorcycles he’s not riding in his ads are cool. That’s…something.
Huntsman is the spare unelectable non-conservative RINO candidate, in case Romney should falter. The Democrats really, really want the Republicans to field another McCain.
(1) Of all GOP candidates, Huntsman is the one who most resembles Eisenhower.
(2) Of all GOP presidents in the last 100 years, historians rank Eisenhower highest (eighth) … we have to go all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt (six) to do better.
So on purely rational grounds, it’s mighty tough to do better than Huntsman.
On the other hand, there are plenty of red-meat Republicans who (1) despise Ike as a “RINO,” and (2) despise Teddy as a “green,” and (3) despise historians as “liberals.”
That is why the Democrats have little to fear … the GOP’s primaries are almost certain to nominate an inferior candidate.
Yeah, yeah Schrodinger. Tell me how that dead cat is going to become a live president.
Democrats embrace voters who admire Clinton’s administration …
Republicans scorn voters who admire Eisenhower’s administration …
… was there ever a more certain recipe for alienating voters and losing elections?
Sometimes I wonder which side is running the show here at Tatler …
“Sometimes I wonder which side is running the show here at Tatler …”
Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!
Really? Huntsman resembles Eisenhower? I must have missed where he was the commander of the American armies in a major war theater rather than being an Obama Administration lackey ambassador.
“Huntsman is the one who most resembles Eisenhower.”
They’re both dead?
I mean, I knew dead Democrats voted, but I had no idea they also ran for president as Republicans.
Reaffirming his belief in climate change last month also isn’t likely to be a big vote-getter for Huntsman in the Republican primary, but that may not be the point. While the media would love to see him win the GOP nomination before they start trashing him, they’d love to not trash him at all — if he runs as a third party candidate in 2012. Huntsman would then be the John Anderson factor in the similarities to the 1980 Carter-Reagan election, but with a little H. Ross Perot thrown in, in that like Ross and unlike Anderson, unlimited access to daddy’s money would make Huntsman far more capable of running a serious campaign in key states which could turn Red in ’12, but might stay blue if Huntsman splits the anti-Obama vote.
Even if he fails to generate a buzz over the next six months among Republican primary voters, expect the big media to keep schmoozing Huntsman, in hopes stroking his ego will push him to keep running all the way until next November.
If a third party candidate is needed to get Obama re-elected, we will see a third party candidate. The Obama people may be terrible at governing, but they are very good at campaigning.
The bolshes sure are interested of late in who the Republican nominee is. It certainly seems important to them that a “moderate” is selected perhaps they are hedging their bets.
(1) If it ain’t Huntsman, who is it?
(2) If it’s “nobody”, then ain’t the Republican Party in some kinda trouble?
`Cuz any party that can’t recognize, accommodate, and nominate Eisenhower-caliber candidates, has zero future in American politics.
huntsman is a shill for the 5th columners
appoint another rino to cover romney to run against obama
its a win win win for the enemy
and now this talk about eisenhower- why do we want candidates like ike?
what is going on?
did i just “dream” i woke up this morning and started reading pjm?
I sometimes imagine (rarely, it’s a painful exercise) what would be said about ME, if I was running for national office.
Because I hold some “live and let live” views…am I a “slimy RINO”, looking to tear down the moral fabric of the country?
Am I a “wishy washy” moderate, who can’t make up his mind about serious issues?
I certainly don’t see myself in these ways.
I thought McCain ran a weak, disjointed, disorganized and uninspiring campaign. I think Huntsman is a threat to run a third party campaign and steal away enough of the center to ensure Obama’s re-election.
I think that the thought of Ron Paul in the White House is the second scariest notion next to four more years of marauding Marxism we have now.
I also believe that there is no “consensus candidate” who will emerge out from behind the fog of disillusionment pulling apart the very people who ought to have one goal in mind. Saving this country from rampant, unchecked leftism.
There is nobody who can galvanize the very, very, very disparate viewpoints or to bring together what should be the common goal for saving this land of ours.
I look at how I myself would be treated on THIS side of the fence…spewing venom at my more “moderate” views….no matter how strenuously I articulated my disdain for the destruction that leftism has wrought.
And THAT venom, THAT lack of acceptance…could be the death knell for Republican success in taking back….saving…this land of ours in our time of greatest need.
Agreed 100% … Hating the opposition is politically risky in Presidential races … hating the center is pure political suicide … which means there’s tons of self-destructive commentary here on Tatler.
the center is a myth
when you have one end of the spectrum employing collectivist/statist ideologies and the other side advocating free markets and individual liberty it is impossible to have a “center” since both systems are totally incompatible– to appear to foster a middle only creates some kind of democratic socialism and we all know what a little “socialism,” once implemented, snowballs into
in truth the “center” is the realm of those that refuse to pick a side
to dabble and select issues a la carte- a little here a little there- is hardly noble or wise (the avatar of the “moderate”) and it implies that the center need to be courted and wooed like some cotillion princess
It’s interesting to watch the fizzy cyst here—a shill for the “global warming/climate change” fraud in other threads—play concern troll over the “centrist” candidate the Republicans “should” run.