Jon Huntsman is the Perfect Republican Candidate

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

Related Post Roulette

127 Responses

  1. b-psycho says:

    That “forward-thinking plan” includes threatening a ground invasion of Iran.  I strongly doubt those “defense” cuts would have any hope w/ such a stance.Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to b-psycho says:

      I think judging from his other statements on Iran and Afghanistan that Huntsman is probably at least partially playing up to the base with this stuff. He can’t afford to look weak on defense, not having staked out the niche Paul has staked out for himself. He is playing the realist-but-still-tough-on-defense card here. But yeah, I think he’s probably close to Obama in many ways.Report

  2. Sam M says:

    “that someday the conservative movement will repair itself”

    Is it broken? Or does it simply disagree with you about certain things? This seems like an important distinction. I disagree with Communists, but I don’t think Communism is broken in any sense. So waiting for it to somehow mend itself seems like a waste of time.

    I don’t like fancy pizza places. For whatever reason. Meaning I have a different culinary point of view from the owners of such establishments. These restaurants are not broken. They just serve something I don’t like. It’s not like the ovens don’t work and they have to close down for a few days until they are repaired.Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Sam M says:

      No, this isn’t some question of aesthetics. This isn’t about whether you and I disagree about the sort of restaurant we like to eat at. Look at the people the GOP is floating for their presidential nominee and then tell me with a straight face that the conservative movement isn’t broken. I’m sorry, but you’re just way off the mark on this one.Report

      • Sam M in reply to E.D. Kain says:

        “Look at the people the GOP is floating for their presidential nominee and then tell me with a straight face that the conservative movement isn’t broken.”

        I do say that with a straight face. I don’t think the movement is broken. I think it is wrong. They have not considered nominating people like Gingrich because there was a mistake or a blunder. They are considering people like Gingrich because he offers a reasonably close version of the person they want to vote for.

        I would call something like the libertarian Party “broken.” It generally knows what it is, but has a hard time manipulating itself onto ballots and getting its message across. When it does get its message across, people tend not to like the content.

        But the GOP? It ain’t broken. It’s a well oiled, perfectly balanced machine. And so is the “Conservative Movement.” It is successful far beyond what it deserves to be. It’s punchinng above its weight. It’s a wonder of organization and effectiveness.

         I just happen to disagree with it.Report

    • b-psycho in reply to Sam M says:

      The more accurate comparison would be to a restaurant that advertises that they do a specific type of food — Chicago style deep dish pizza, for example — yet when people go to that restaurant they are serving everything from fried chicken to sushi, and responding to anyone pointing this discrepancy out by saying of the STL style thin crust pizza place across the street that “they don’t know real pizza”.

      That’s the problem with the conservative movement. It concentrates so much on what it’s against that what it’s for is a contradictory mess.Report

      • BSK in reply to b-psycho says:

        Perhaps we shouldn’t conflate conservatism and Republicanism. As I understand conservatism (and I’m far from an expert), there are certain tenets I am fully on board with. There are few, if any, elements of the mainstream Republican platform that I can agree with.Report

        • Mike in reply to BSK says:

          And yet part of the problem with the Republican-slash-“Conservative” line right now is that there IS no room for compromises, no room for consensus building, no room for anything but the “our way or the highway” mentality.

          It’s what makes me laugh any time the question of “conservative principles” comes up, because the “conservatism” they insist is all important involves taking half the party out back and shooting them in a RINO-hunt. That and the fact that even their great golden-calf idol, “Ronald Reagan”, would be counted a RINO if any of them bothered to look up his actual policies and speeches.

          So yes both the Republican Party, and the “conservative movement”, are fundamentally broken.Report

      • Sam M in reply to b-psycho says:

        “yet when people go to that restaurant they are serving everything from fried chicken to sushi”

        OK. But if people keep eating the food and keep coming back to spend their money despite the false advertising, that’s not a broken restaurant. It’s a wildly successful restaurant. If it’s so successful, in fact, that no other restaurants can open on the block despite all the complaints, due to lack of business for other restaurants… in what world would the restaurant owner change his menu? Why would he change his approach? His approach works?

        You can say the Olive Garden is a terrible restaurant all you want. But to call it broken when there are lines stretched around the block, you have to be nuts. They just happen to make food you don’t like. You might want to live in a world in which people don’t stand in line for that food, but you don’t live in such a world.

        If the Conservative Movement is broken, how do you explain the tens of millions of people who contuinue to vote for Conservative candidates?Report

  3. Tom Van Dyke says:

    Dem strategist Tyler Jones: “This is why liberals in South Carolina love Jon Huntsman…He hates Republicans just as much as we do.”

    HT: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/08/jon-huntsman-democrats-republicanReport

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

      You’re a Mitt guy, right Tom? What about Mitt is more conservative than Huntsman?Report

      • Tom Van Dyke in reply to E.D. Kain says:

        That Mitt doesn’t hate Republicans?  EDK, one of the few virtues of the two-party system is the consensus/coalition-building dimension.  First, you gotta unify your own, admittedly a tall order for Romney but an impossibility for Huntsman, who doesn’t even try.

        Barack Obama unified his party, and handily beat McCain, who didn’t.  I’m OK with that.  You can’t pull guys out of left field like Kerry or Huntsman, or win with guys like Gore, who turned his back on Clinton, a successful brand.

        Actually, my mischievous thought about the OP is that it got it backwards—it’s the Democrats who need a centrist like Huntsman to reform them and recapture the party from the McGovern wing.  I miss my old Democrats.Report

        • E.D. Kain in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

          Huntsman was wildly popular in deep, deep Red Utah. I don’t think he hates Republicans. But I think he made that impression – hence the “botched” line up above.

          Is Obama not a centrist? If not, what steps would a centrist Democrat need to take? I mean, Obama is basically a Clinton-ite, isn’t he? They were very centrist. Personally, I think we need more George H.W. Bush’s in the GOP. The Dems are pretty much centrist already.Report

          • Tom Van Dyke in reply to E.D. Kain says:

            Sorry, EDK.  As I wrote to one of our visitors, those who criticize BHO from his left think he’s too centrist, therefore discussions with anyone to the right of them have never been fruitful here @ LoOG.

            BHO is “centrist” only in that losing the House in 2010 prevented him from furthering his agenda.  people aren’t even aware of the fallout coming from obamacare if we don’t reverse it.

            http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2011/12/26/doctors-say-obamacare-is-no-remedy-for-u-s-health-woes/

            I could turn your question back on you: if there’s no substantive difference between Romney and Huntsman and you think Huntsman’s so great, why not Mitt?

            [Nyah-hah-hah, he said, twirling the ends of his moustache.]Report

            • E.D. Kain in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

              Because Romney is dishonest.Report

              • Not that I have any desire to defend Romney, of whom my opinion is roughly what it was 4 years ago when I viewed him as the worst option in a bad field (though I view him as the least-bad option with a realistic chance at the nomination this time around!), but…..do we really expect anything short of “lots of lying” from our politicians?  It strikes me as more likely that, as Blaise says below, “Huntsman is what Romney was” than that Huntsman is inherently less dishonest than Romney.

                The larger part of Romney’s problem, it seems, is that he’s not very good at lying.

                 Report

              • Michael Drew in reply to Mark Thompson says:

                So Huntsman is presumptively as dishonest as Romney because he’s a politician, so he’s likely, when all is said and done, to have told as many lies as Romney, even if he hasn’t yet?  That doesn’t seem like a good argument to me.

                Incidentally, I don’t know how many lies are actually on Romney’s record.  What is on his record is a fluid willingness to openly and honestly change his stated beliefs and positions (drastically) as his ambition dictates.  The result is that few people, conservatives especially, trust that they will get from him anything that looks very much like he says they will (which is not to say that they won’t in this instance – but who really knows?).  This is something that can result from being caught in lies as well, but here it results from an open, honest lack of commitment to principles.

                Jon Huntsmann may be little less dishonest than Mitt Romney (though if this is the case, it must be because he actually has as many whoppers on his record as Mitt (and Mitt has a few), not because he’s a politician therefore he must simply be dishonest to a similar degree).  But he doesn’t have the same problem with lack of trust that Mitt has earned himself not with dishonesty but with inconsistency.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Mark Thompson says:

                Mr. Drew, Obama lies like a fish.  This isn’t even an issue in the greater scheme of things, just an excuse and a smokescreen.  A majority of the American people [incl most of the litigants on this] would vote for a great and proven liar, Bill Clinton, tomorrow.

                And I wouldn’t blame them.  But let’s get real.  Mr. Kain stumbled upon it, that Romney is a shitty liar.  Now that’s real.Report

              • greginak in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Are fish known for lying? Pooing in the water yes but lying ? Rugs lie all the time i’ve heard.Report

              • Michael Drew in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                You’re right, Tom. As I was trying to suggest, inability to convince that that you will reliably work to advance what you are telling people you support is almost always going to be a greater obstacle to earning people’s votes than putting on your recrod a demonstrated willingness to lie in the service of advancing shared priorities.

                At the same time, that does not mean that all politicians are equally dishonest.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Michael Drew says:

                I’m not successfully sorting my way through yr reply, Mr. Drew.  But I remain either uncynical or realistic: I don’t think anyone’s successfully made his way to the presidency just by lying.  I respect all the nominees we’ve come up with. [Although I admit problems with Kerry and Gore as credible persons.  They’re weird.]

                Clinton, OK.  President Carter did the best he could.  [His post-presidency, ecch.]  Of the losers, Dole, Dukakis, Mondale, all good men.  Ford.  Humphrey.  Adlai Stevenson.  George McGovern—good man.  Even Goldwater turned out to be not an unreasonable man.  [Nixon?  Well, Nixon was Nixon.]

                I’m certainly a critic of President Obama, but I don’t question his basic honesty or decency, question for a moment that he’s a good man.

                 

                 Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to E.D. Kain says:

                And BHO isn’t?  C’mon, EDK.  We’re getting into a quoque calculus here that has no end.  In fact, you turned one good eye and one blind eye to Ron Paul, who is simply not presidential material.  I’d vote for Obama before Paul.  This is all over the map.

                But it would be interesting to see your case why Huntsman’s all that different from Romney, since your original premise was that, conservatively speaking, he’s not.  And even if so, since Romney’s already in the driver’s seat, I see no reason to prefer Huntsman.Report

              • Stillwater in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Tom, I read the link, and it seems like a fair summary of the GOP-sanctioned view of foreign aid: that it should remain an open question whether any particular country receives it.

                I don’t think there’s anything dishonest there. It just seems like the obvious logical conclusion of another poorly thought out GOP talking point.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Stillwater says:

                A ridiculous conclusion, Mr. Stillwater, since the GOP cozies up to Israel far more than the Dems of late.  But it was a quick example: there are scores of BHO lies on record.  Not that I’m making a big deal out of them either: it goes with the territory, admittedly a blemish on a candidate, but not significant enough to actually alter one’s vote.

                At least IMO: that Romney put out a dishonest campaign ad, so I’m voting for Obama instead.  I’m just not buying that one.Report

              • BlaiseP in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Heh.   But you’re voting for Romney even though he’s a pathetic liar.   I am put in mind of the disciples of Jesus, especially Peter, denying his Lord before some servant girl.

                The GOP is a collection of feebs and catamitic wussies, completely in thrall to the Radio Bloviators.   Say it ain’t so.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Only 7 pejoratives and it took you 2 whole paragraphs, Blaise.  Far below the LoOG record for such cant.  Balloon Juice would probably throw you out.Report

              • I dunno, Tom.  I think the use of the word “catamitic” counts for at least 5 perjoratives by itself.Report

              • BlaiseP in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Balloon Juice?   That spittle-flecked haunt of weak thinkers and tendentious mantra repeaters?   Where “fuck” and “shitty” are still considered clever?Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                MarkT, when one counts the poopies in the punchbowl, he does not comment on their quality.  One is about the same as the next.Report

              • BlaiseP in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Poopy Words are the stock in trade of the ill-mannered and semi-literate, a space filler for the adjective-deprived.Report

              • Scott in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                BlaiseP:

                “Balloon Juice?   That spittle-flecked haunt of weak thinkers and tendentious mantra repeaters?   Where “fuck” and “shitty” are still considered clever?”

                That quite a statement considering some of your past spittle-flecked vitriolic rants.Report

              • BlaiseP in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Yeah, it is.  Ol’ Tomas is trying to say I’d get thrown out of Balloon Juice for my pejorative ways.   I’m the goddamned Self-Proclaimed and Unashamed Emperor of Pejorative and Invective, Rex et Basileus and I don’t piddle around in sad little echo chambers anymore.   Erik Kain intrigues me, which is why I’m here.   He’s got real promise as a writer and I have yet to come to terms with Libertarians as a species since I concluded Murray Rothbard was a fatuous innumerate and I consider that ignorance a personal deficiency because a philosophy is more than its dead philosophers, it’s its living advocates.  I can forgive the Libertarians Ayn Rand.   I don’t forgive them Murray Rothbard either but I figure I ought to give them another chance.   There are more good writers around here than E.D.   Elias Isquith, Alex Knapp.   There are some first-rate neurons firing here.Report

              • Nob Akimoto in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Words are important, Tom. I’m not trying to play semantics, here, but you make a sweeping claim to his ideological leaning, and I just don’t see what you’re seeing.

                I guess I’m not seeing the Euro-left social-democrat thing. Social-democratic parties have pretty specific platforms, and for the most part, Obama’s basically a Gaulist or a Lib-Dem at best.

                Certainly he’s far to the right of most Europeans particularly in the use of force category.Report

              • BSK in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                BP-

                Fabulous post! Nothing to add but I loved it!Report

              • Mr. Akimoto, our lefties claim Obama as center or even right-of-center!  let’s deal with the absurdities before we split the hairs.

                You may be correct per your specific examples: a “Christian Democrat” ala Merkel, then?  Regardless, we’re down to hair-splitting.  He’s to the left of New Labour, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton’s “Third Way.”  You’ll find some talk from Obama about how America is different from the Eurostates; what is lacking is anything in policy that is away from gov’t growth and regulation in that American way. You’ll notice that nobody’s offering up examples of his direct opposition to leftish proposals.  That’s because there aren’t any or many.  What we he oppose on the social democrat agenda?  Where is his “Third Way” neo-liberalism that encourages business and growth?  I have no idea.

                As for Obama and military force, it’s tough to say what he would do with a clean slate.  American presidents find themselves obliged to go along with the consensus: it’s hard to think of an example where an American president really bucked that consensus.

                I do think he’s played with fire [mostly by inaction] during the Arab spring, and I fear his repeating Jimmy Carter’s blunder on the Shah with Yemen as we speak.  I expect that Yemen will be a major burr under the civilized world’s butt in the next decade, if Egypt isn’t a bigger one.

                BHO follows the path of least resistance–Obamacare was muscled in by the McGovern wing in Congress, Pelosi in particular being unmistakably part of it.  He has largely followed Bush43’s policies on the Islamo-terrorism thing.  He “led from behind” on NATO’s war on Qaddafi.  He withheld even tacit support for Iran’s dissidents, and lent it to Egypt’s.  How much he would “tax the rich” is unknown: what is his limit?  He will not say.  How far would he take his “green” ideology if unchecked?  Again, we do not know.

                We [and I mean me here] can only hope that we don’t get the chance to find out, that he is re-elected and regains control of Congress.

                But that’s my own mishigas.  For the purposes of this discussion, I just want to call a shovel a shovel.  The complaint from our own social democrat left [here @ LoOG!] is that BHO doesn’t fight hard enough for their agenda, which I suppose is true.  But there is no evidence he’s not in complete sympathy with it.

                 Report

              • BlaiseP in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Well, there is Romney’s backing away from everything he used to stand for, once upon a time.   Romney’s not in the driver’s seat.  He’s bent over the examining table with Rush Limbaugh’s proctoscope shoved so far up his ass it’s reached his vocal cords.

                 Report

              • BSK in reply to BlaiseP says:

                President Obama is center-right. The problem is that the GOP has moved so far to the right that they perceive him as a socialist. Which is absurd, and not just because it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what socialism is.Report

              • BlaiseP in reply to BSK says:

                As I’ve often said, take the labels off Obama and you get something more akin to what a moderate Republican used to be.  Not that the comparison is perfect, but Bush41 sorta fits the bill.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to BSK says:

                Obama’s a Euro-left social democrat.  Fortunately, he was thwarted by the 2010 election.  As I said, this vein of discussion is not fruitful here.  We do not agree on the colors of the spectrum.Report

              • BlaiseP in reply to BSK says:

                Now I’ll tell you what’s a fruitful discussion.   That would involve some original thinking.    Obama is hardly a socialist.  Perhaps you can  define it for us in practical terms.   And while you’re at it, explain the differences between Romneycare and Obamacare.Report

              • Stillwater in reply to BSK says:

                Tom, I know you don’t find the issue a fruitful topic of discussion, but I think there’s lots of evidence – of the just payin-attention kind – that the GOP and contemporary conservatives generally identify ‘radical leftism’ with ‘any policy supported by Democrats’. I find that a fruitful topic of discussion because insofar as it’s accurate, it reveals not only to politics of conservatives, but their policy goals as well. The party is fundamentally reactionary, and at the most trivial of levels.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to BSK says:

                Yes, Mr. Stillwater, and every right winger is “far” right, and “extreme,” etc.  I don’t pay attention to that crap much.  If you want to argue how Obama differs from yr avg Euro-left social democrat, look me up.Report

              • BSK in reply to BSK says:

                Socialism, at its most basic level, is defined by social ownership of the means of production. With that in mind, how exactly is our President a socialist?Report

              • Stillwater in reply to BSK says:

                If you want to argue how Obama differs from yr avg Euro-left social democrat, look me up.

                It seems to me that the only Euro-lefty policy Obama instituted was pretty much identical to the GOP-endorsed national plan from the 90’s.

                If you’re saying the GOP of the Clinton years endorsed Euro-left socialism, then maybe we have something else to talk about here. But I think that would confirm my larger point.Report

              • Nob Akimoto in reply to BSK says:

                Obama’s hardly a european social-democrat. If he were French, he’d probably be part of the Gaullist successor parties of one stripe or another, if he were German he’d be a Christian Democrat. While I’m of the understanding that Mr. Obama does not like David Cameron personally (who would, really?), he’d probably fit in pretty well with the Tories or the Lib-Dem coalition at present..

                That is to say, dude’s only Center-Left in American politics by dint of the fact that the American center is much to the right of the European (or in fairness the world in general, outside of maybe the middle east) center.

                The Oxford Manifesto, for example, which is a bland, perfectly liberal (in the broadest, traditional sense) document, would probably be attacked by “centrist” Republicans today for being too left leaning in some of its language, despite being very pro-free market.Report

              • BlaiseP in reply to BSK says:

                Consider yourself looked up, Tom.   Can you actually square up Obama’s EuroSocialism with anything but Rush Limbaugh’s say-so?

                Others have been good enough to put forward a definition of socialism.   Your turn now, to point out how Obamacare is any different than Romneycare.   Turn off the Meme-o-Matic for a while and prove to us how Obama is a big old nasty socialist.   In other countries, Socialist isn’t a dirty word any more than Conservative or Liberal or Libertarian, it’s an adjective, not a noun.   Socialism means this:  not everything worth doing in the world will get done by private enterprise and it ought to get done.

                Or are we to apply Marxism’s definition of socialism here?   That’s got a specific definition, one much harder to pin on Obama, but you could give it a try.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to BSK says:

                Mr. Stillwater, you’re not trying.  First, that’s not the question I asked.  Second, that’s a rather familiar sophistry.

                Your mission is to argue how BHO differs from yr avg Euro-left social democrat.  [I didn’t call him a “socialist,” BSK, so you are excused from any further participation in this.]

                We would not want to be disinguenuous about Obamacare resembling a 1990s GOP proposal, Mr. Stillwater: we’d have single-payer [if not a full-on NHS] if Barack Obama could have got it through Congress.

                2003:

                I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14% of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.

                And thank God he was frustrated, first by insufficient support in his own party, then by losing the House in 2010.  That BHO was forced into more centrist compromises by no means says that they were his preference.Report

              • BlaiseP in reply to BSK says:

                How is Single Payer un-capitalist?   I do health care AI for a living, are you trying to tell me Single Payer isn’t more efficient?    Do you have any concept of what the Law of Large Numbers will do to insurance rates if everyone’s in the life pool?Report

              • BSK in reply to BSK says:

                Fine, Tom. You define “Euro-left social deocrat” in the abstract and then demonstrate how Obama fits the definition. Thus far all you have done is quote his position oh health care from 8 years ago.Report

              • Nob Akimoto in reply to BSK says:

                Single-payer is about as “euro-left” as I am white, American and Republican.

                That is to say, not at all.

                A true euro-left socialist would want something akin to Britain’s NHS, which is a wholly state-owned and operated healthcare system. Other examples are Finland (where municipalities operate hospitals) Denmark, Italy, Sweden, Norway….

                Single-payer and universal health insurance is a pretty center-right notion, found in places like Germany.

                Sorry, try harder.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to BSK says:

                You too, Nob?  I hadn’t taken you for a sophist, refusing to stipulate to any terms, since your argument lies in the manipulation of terms.

                Of course I was using the American political spectrum: single-payer does not exist here right of center.  Geez, Europe has a real left–actual out and out Communist parties; France has a Socialist Party to its “right.”

                As for what BHO would do if he could, the chances are getting better that we will never find out.  But my use elsewhere in this thread of the difference between the “McGovern wing” and the Democratic Leadership Council [now defunct] makes the point just fine.Report

              • BSK in reply to BSK says:

                You have not made your point, Tom, and certainly not by referring to McGovern. I asked you a pretty point blank question. Are you capable of answering it?Report

              • trizzlor in reply to E.D. Kain says:

                Because Romney is dishonest.

                The way I look at this is how effective a candidate is at achieving my goals, not how passionately they truly feel about those goals. Romney’s switched his views multiple times, but he’s switched them in-line with the changing GOP wisdom, so Republicans should actually be pretty confident that he’ll represent the opinions they hold popularly. Gingrich, on other hand, switches his views erratically to pander to fringe groups (e.g. “right-wing social engineering”,”the Palestinians are an invented people”), so it’s not at all clear how well he’ll serve the GOP agenda. Huntsman, on the third hand, has been relatively consistent but many of his views are liberal.

                So you’re a Republican voter and you’re picking between the dishonest guy who will sell his soul for your approval, the dishonest guy who is usually a bomb-thrower for your base but sometimes erratic, and the honest guy who frequently takes pleasure in disagreeing with you. I’ll take Huntsman as my bartender but Mitt as my president (as a GOP voter, obviously).Report

              • Nob Akimoto in reply to trizzlor says:

                I dunno.

                Out of the 4 campaigns he’s run…Romney’s only won one so far…

                I don’t really see his political acumen to be the greatest…which would worry me as a GOP voter.Report

              • wardsmith in reply to trizzlor says:

                I’ll take Huntsman as my bartender

                But they might kick him out of the ‘church’ for that. Then again, not being a Mormon would improve his chances in the bible belt so there you have it,Report

              • Nob Akimoto in reply to E.D. Kain says:

                His dishonesty isn’t as disturbing as his mechanical, detached sadism.

                Do y’all know the story about the family vacation where he strapped his dog onto the roof of his family car (in a carrier, but still)….

                He also speaks of wanting more Gitmos and interrogation techniques. He’s just…well not particularly humane.Report

              • Michelle in reply to Nob Akimoto says:

                There is something oddly robot-like about Mitt. He comes off as as lacking any kind of empathy. But he’s stood by his wife through cancer and MS, whereas Newt abandoned Wife 1 (cancer) and Wife 2 (MS) soon after their diagnoses.  So, it seems like there’s some core level of decency to Mitt even if he is emotionally clueless, a core level of decency that Newt lacks.Report

            • Scott in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

              TVD:

              Don’t bother, you just have to chuckle at liberals like E.D. who write about which Repub candidates are the “good” ones. If I wanted to vote for a Dem I would vote for a Dem.Report

              • Nob Akimoto in reply to Scott says:

                Horror of horrors, a Republican presidential candidate who has actually achieved a balanced budget in his home state as governor, substantially reduced tax rates, streamlining his state’s income tax system…

                We can’t actually have a Republican who practices what he preaches! Need more hypocrites and hyperbolic super nationalists….Report

              • Scott in reply to Nob Akimoto says:

                Nob:

                Sorry, almost every state has to have a balanced budget, so BFD. As for the other things thank the legislature not Huntsman. This is why I find it so amusing that Clinton takes credit for having a balanced budget when it was the Congress that actually passed it.

                Yes, some Repub candidates have changed their mind on some issues but so what, I would rather have someone that can change their mind as opposed to someone that refuses to.

                 Report

              • Nob Akimoto in reply to Scott says:

                States do require balanced budgets by law, but most larger states run substantial deficits that are hidden by all sorts of interesting budgeting gimmicks. Moreover, the process of arriving at a balanced budget during times of budgetary shortfalls include large amounts of horse-trading and negotiations where a governor will serve as a lead negotiator for his party against the other side. It’s a bigger deal than you might think.

                This is particularly striking when you compare records with other gubernatorial candidates in the GOP primary. For example, Rick Perry despite all his grandstanding has not been able to plug the gaping hole in the Texas general revenue fund, nor has he been willing to dip into the rainy day fund to plug shortfalls. Instead the state republican party has resorted to cutting social services and trying to hide the shortfall through gimmicks which will only prolong the problem into the next legislative session.

                 Report

          • Michael Cain in reply to E.D. Kain says:

            “Huntsman was wildly popular in deep, deep Red Utah.”

            It is becoming more and more difficult to reconcile elected officials at the national level (and candidates for those offices), both Democratic and Republican, with the realities of their individual states.  The disconnect can, IMO, be attributed to the fact that at the national level, neither party actually has to govern.  In almost all states, the legislature has to adopt a balanced budget without borrowing by a fixed date.  Except for some of the largest, they manage to do this routinely, reaching the necessary agreements with the folks on the other side of the aisle.  Congress might order something like “reduce federal Medicaid matching by 10%”; at the state level, the legislature has to make hard specific choices about whose benefits will be cut.  Poor children?  Elderly residents in nursing homes?  Developmentally disabled?Report

            • Nob Akimoto in reply to Michael Cain says:

              Unless of course you have enormous majorities in both houses of the state congress…*coughTexascough*

              The Texas state leg can’t govern itself out of a wet paper bag (of which there are none in Texas because drought conditions are terrible and worsened by non-existent rationing…)Report

              • One can certainly disagree with the decisions that Texas has made — and I disagree with some of them — but the legislature there has made the decisions.  It took one or two special sessions, but they passed a budget, as required — something that Congress hasn’t managed for how long?  Size seems to matter; California, Texas, New York and Illinois, four of the five most populous states, seem to have similar difficulties.  I live in a medium-sized state with the two chambers at the Statehouse split between the two parties, and the decisions get made without either side digging in, in contrast to the House and Senate at the national level.Report

              • Nob Akimoto in reply to Michael Cain says:

                I don’t really agree they made the hard decisions, so much as kicked a lot of stuff down the road, but I suppose you’re right.

                Size however isn’t as important as structure, I think. California for example has a state system where a minority party can obstruct. The US Congress does, too.

                I mean, hell, look at Belgium. Tiny, tiny country. Unicameral legislature. Yet had no working government for 18 months.Report

              • Cain, I just wanted to say that there is a whole lot of great points nestled in here. Or, rather, you touch on a lot of different things that make me want to leave a long-arse comment. Alas, I am hitting the road tomorrow and won’t have time. I’ll try to get back to it.

                In the meantime, Nob points to Belgium as a small county that cannot govern itself. Some of that is structural, as he suggests, but some of it is a product of Belgium’s diversity. In that case, a rather clear division between three distinct states-within-a-state (okay, one of them is a city state that is the house to a completely different government – a unique case). California, Texas, Illinois, New York… mostly places with notable diversity. I don’t just mean ethnic diversity, but Upstate vs NYC, the multipolar urban zones in Texas and California with differing cultures (again, not just a reference to ethnicity, though that plays a role).

                In addition to some of the other things you point out, it’s hard for a central govern to govern very different places (with different needs and different cultures) at once.Report

        • b-psycho in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

          Yeah, because the “McGovern wing” would sit idle as the administration defines the entire planet as a legit war zone…

           

           Report

          • Tom Van Dyke in reply to b-psycho says:

            Mr. Psycho, a little history on your party:

            “[Howard] Dean once described the [Democratic Leadership Council] as the “Republican wing of the Democratic Party.” [26] The DLC countered that Dean represented the “McGovern-Mondale wing” of the Democratic Party, “defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist, interest-group liberalism at home.”

            Bill Clinton, of course was the DLC’s greatest success, but now it’s defunct. Howard Dean went on to become party chair. So this is what I mean by the “McGovern wing” of the party, OK?  I’m playing it straight.

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_CouncilReport

            • b-psycho in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

              Not “my” party, Tom.  Parties are for people who think there’s something of the state worth attempting to redeem by picking new bums to replace the old ones.

              Still, you judge by who sits in the chairs, I judge by what actually happens, and based on the actions of the Obama administration w/r/t foreign policy I’d think any true “McGovern” wing of his party would be in revolt.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to b-psycho says:

                Mr. Psycho, “McGovern wing” is an established political term, even used by Joe Biden.  I’d google it all up for you, but it’s another thankless job.

                As for yr claim of no party affinity, these things mean zero to me.  You’ll be voting for Obama in 2012 and savaging the GOP nominee: it’s a difference that makes no difference.Report

              • b-psycho in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                I haven’t voted for a president since 2000. That vote was for Harry Browne.  I considered a vote in ’04 for the LP nominee that year but decided to sit out due to what I at the time saw as a suicidal campaign strategy taken up by that candidate.  In 2008 the only votes I made were on local issues, leaving all federal office positions blank. I’m not voting for president this go round either.

                Not everyone who disagrees with you is a Dem, Tom.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to b-psycho says:

                I’ll take your word for it, Mr. Psycho.  I’m gratified you’re sitting 2012 out.Report

            • Liberty60 in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

              According to RedState, Lindsey Graham is a socialist; Newt Gingrich is a hard core leftist., and Mitt Romney is a Democrat.

              Someone more ambitious than I ccould craft a diagram that locates BHO, Lindsey Graham, Bill Ayres, and Stalin within one party.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Liberty60 says:

                Yah, Lib60, and the lefty American Prospect sez “By today’s Tea Party standards, the Republican icon would have been a Leninist-Marxist-socialist America hater.”

                Uh huh.  Whatever.  Since that’s what “they” say about him too, that means BHO is Ronald Reagan.

                There is no concept that the able sophist can’t manipulate into complete nonsense by manipulating the terms.Report

              • BSK in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                You do realize the differnce between quoting Red State’s position and American Prospect’s presumption of what the Tea Party’s position would be?

                You might be the internet’s best dodge ball player, Tom. Unfortunately, that isn’t the name of the game here.Report

              • Liberty60 in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Oh, and Firedoglake calls BHO the equivalent of GWB.

                So really,the  logic goes like this:

                Geo. McGovern= BHO=GWB=Hitler=Stalin=Kevin Bacon

                 Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Liberty60 says:

                Lib60, if only they knew how well the Dem Party activist and the resident rightie get along because they share a common language.

                Like the man says, clarity over agreement.  That’s the only fruit this tree bears.Report

  4. BlaiseP says:

    Huntsman is what Romney was.Report

  5. James K says:

    What impressed me about Huntsman is his stance on global warming, particularity is reasoning behind it.  It amounts to “the experts are saying it, so I’m going to believe it.  What I do about it is a separate issue”.

    This tells me he understands the proper relationship between an advisor and a decision-maker.  The advisor figures out the facts, and reports to the decision-maker along with a recommendation.  The decision-maker’s role is to accept the facts, consider the recommendation and decide what to do.

    This understanding is an important piece of knowledge for someone who wants to be President.Report

  6. Good post. I think Huntsman would beat Obama in 2012, fwiw, but I also think he has no chance of making it out of the primary — this year or in 2020 (GOP ain’t going to go Mormon twice-in-a-row). His repeated Kurt Cobain references, however, have won him my eternal sympathy.Report

  7. Nob Akimoto says:

    Huntsman’s biggest problem with the GOP base of course, is that he worked for Obama as Ambassador to China. Even if he did gain frontrunner status, the fact that he recognized Obama as a legitimate president and governing leader would disqualify him…Report

  8. Joe Carter says:

    ***He’s a moderate on social issues (at least as liberal as Obama so far as I can tell)***

    Um, what? On what issues is Huntsman as liberal as Obama? Certainly not on the two biggest social issues of the day: abortion and gay marriage.

    As governor of Utah, Huntsman supported and signed—as he has said—every pro-life bill that came to my desk, including parental consent, informed consent, and late-term abortion ban laws. That is the opposite of Obama.

    On gay marriage Huntsman has said that “redefining marriage is something that would be impossible and it’s something I would not be in favor of . . .” Obama’s position on gay marriage: “I’m still working on it.”

    Huntsman supports DOMA. Obama does not.

    *** I’m not sure Huntsman could be smeared so easily with the isolationism tar brush.***

    No, probably not since Huntsman is in no way an isolationist. You are aware, aren’t you, that he said he’d launch a ground invasion to prevent Iran from getting nukes? That’s pretty standard neo-con stuff.Report

    • Jesse Ewiak in reply to Joe Carter says:

      Stop pointing out what Huntsman has actually done (like instituting a regressive flat tax and signing every pro-life bill out there) that points how he is indeed still a right-winger. Yes, he believe in evolution and climate change (kinda). He still wants to blow up brown people in the Middle East and gut Medicare. But, that’s a ‘moderate’ these days in the GOP.Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Joe Carter says:

      Joe, as I explained re: Iran up-thread I don’t think Huntsman is entirely sincere when it comes to Iran. I think he’s playing tough on defense when his actual positions are much more cautious. I could be wrong. But I certainly don’t think he’s beating the neo-con drum simply by talking tough about Iran.

      I actually forgot about the abortion issue. I think I’m trying to block that out of my head lately. I’m not actually that concerned one way or another as I see the issue itself not changing at the national level. Already its devolving back to the states in any case.

      Re: gay marriage. Obama is hardly a champion of that cause. Huntsman would hardly be a champion for those who are against it. I don’t see much of a difference either way. But yes, Huntsman is certainly to the right of Obama. I’m just not particularly convinced that he’s far enough to the right of Obama to make much of a practical difference. Both men strike me as fairly competent and very smart. I would be pretty content with either as president, at least outside of foreign policy.

       Report

      • trizzlor in reply to E.D. Kain says:

        I think he’s playing tough on defense when his actual positions are much more cautious.

        Has this ever actually turned out to be the case for any president?Report

      • Jesse Ewiak in reply to E.D. Kain says:

        In other words, you like the ‘idea’ of Jon Huntsman, sensible moderate instead of the ‘reality’ of Jon Huntsman, ‘right-wing governor who’s somewhat based in reality.’ Huntsman’s national security team is led by Brent Scowcroft, Richard Haass, and RIchard Armitage. All who held key positions in past Republican administrations and all who are basically neocons, aside from Scowcroft and even his biggest problem w/ the Iraq War is we didn’t have enough backup. I don’t see much evidence  that these are the people who won’t be pushing an invasion of Iran from day one.

        Look, I can understand the notion of trying to find somebody instead of Obama if you’re disappointed in him. But, the truth is, even if you don’t care about gay rights (as a Huntsman administration would start defending DOMA), reproductive rights (as the first Huntsman appointee to the SC would overturn RvW and make it even easier for states to ban abortion), entitlements (he fully supports the wacky Ryan plan), sane tax policy (as Huntsman would eliminate capital gains/dividend taxes and drastically cut income taxes), don’t try to act a Huntsman Presidency or any Republican Presidency wouldn’t be far to the right of Obama, especially with a GOP House & Senate that would accompany any Republican win in 2012.

        Make the arguments on the merits that more massive tax cuts, more cuts in Medicare, less reproductive freedom, and the such are all just prices we have to pay for a Huntsman Presidency.Report

        • Armitage was, as a member of the Bush administration, largely considered a moderate of the Colin Powell mold. Internally, an opponent of Wolfowitz and along with Powell a voice of caution (if not opposition) to the war. He resigned with Powell and afterwards almost immediately called for a withdrawal from Iraq.

          Scowcroft’s opposition to the Iraq War was more ideological than you give it credit for. He felt it would cause instability in the Middle East and hinder (liberal-friendly) attempts at Israel-Palestinian peace.

          Haass is also a Powellite. He is the head of the Council on Foreign Relations. Largely an internationalist organization and not a particularly neoconservative one.

          None of these men are particularly well-regarded by the hawks.Report

          • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Will Truman says:

            Richard Armitage was Robert Novak’s source on Valerie Plame, a non-event of which so much hay was made.  He was never made to suffer, but he should have.

            The rest of Jon Huntsman’s “kitchen cabinet” listed here is a Loser’s Corner.

            For the record, we fucking won in Iraq despite the weak knees of those who wanted to quit when things got tough.   That’s a fact.  Whether it was “worth it” is a separate discussion.

            What happens from here is on BHO’s head.  We might get lucky, he might get lucky, the Iraqi people might get lucky.  I hope so.  But he’s rolling the dice.

            Poor little pawn and minor functionary Scooter Libby went to jail, but it was Richard Armitage who shot off his mouth and gave Valerie Plame up in the first place.  You could look it up.  I’m appalled Armitage has the guts to show his face in public.  He should have had the decency to fade away into well-earned disgrace.Report

            • Nob Akimoto in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

              I don’t know what your definition of victory is, but if the point was to create political breathing room in Iraq for political reconciliation? No, the US lost.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Nob Akimoto says:

                Of course it was victory in Iraq, Nob, unless you redefine it, which you just did.  Win the war, lose the peace, then win the peace.  Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back.

                Another 2 years to let the Iraqis get themselves squared away?  That would have been prudent, esp with Egypt, Yemen and perhaps Libya about to go squirrelly, and bigtime.  Don’t even know about Syria.

                I was hoping you & I could discuss stuff rather than front for this & that.  Was Iraq worth it?  Probably not.  Is endangering what was a clear success [despite the cost]  worth it by withdrawing our troops now for no more than minor political points?  Emphatically no.  Sir.

                President Obama plays with fire.Report

              • Nob Akimoto in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Given that it was the Iraqi government that wanted the US out, what was the Obama Administration supposed to do? Overrule Maliki and say they were staying?

                SOFA wasn’t exactly up for negotiation.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Nob Akimoto says:

                I do appreciate yr good faith in this discussion, Mr. Akimoto.  It didn’t exactly go down that way.

                http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world/middleeast/united-states-and-iraq-had-not-expected-troops-would-have-to-leave.html?_r=3&hp

                Contrary to popular belief, I don’t get my “facts” from Rush Limbaugh.  [If you even know who he is, and it’s OK if you don’t.]Report

              • b-psycho in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                From that article:

                This month, American officials pressed the Iraqi leadership to meet again at President Talabani’s compound to discuss the issue. This time the Americans asked them to take a stand on the question of immunity for troops, hoping to remove what had always been the most difficult hurdle. But they misread Iraqi politics and the Iraqi public. Still burdened by the traumas of this and previous wars, and having watched the revolutions sweeping their region, the Iraqis were unwilling to accept anything that infringed on their sovereignty.

                U.S. forces ask for immunity, the Iraqi people reject the idea, U.S. forces leave. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?

                If it’s true that Talabani didn’t want them all to leave, then this result shows a degree of people power, at least on this question, that I didn’t expect to see.  Good on them.Report

            • There is little question that Armitage was the primary leaker. By most accounts, though, what Armitage did was accidental and without malicious intent (and he came forward as the source once he realized the error). They came down hard on Libby because he was alleged to be part of what was an effort to discredit Plame in what was considered to be a political act.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Will Truman says:

                WillT, Plame’s husband, the incompetent glory-seeker Ambassador Joe Wilson, went to Nigeria on her recommendation, did a crap “investigative” job, then went political with his “findings.”

                There is no truth to be found here in any of it.  It was a great amount of sound & fury signifying nothing, and that poor bastard Scooter Libby is the one who took the fall.

                Geez, the last thing I want to do is re-litigate this toad & his wife.

                http://mediamatters.org/blog/201011070009Report

              • greginak in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Wilson really had egg on his face when all those nukes were found in Iraq, didn’t he.Report

              • E.D. Kain in reply to greginak says:

                We all did, Greg. We all did.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to E.D. Kain says:

                O pls, guys, don’t do the circle jerk.  Joe Wilson din’t know dick about WMD, or even the job he was sent to do.Report

              • If this is your view on the affair, why do you think that Armitage should have been disgraced over it? That’s what I didn’t get about your first response.

                In any event, my interest in this discussion is Armitage’s role in it (which is not flattering, though not clearly criminal or even political), and clearing the air on Armitage (a critic of the Iraq War), Scowcroft (an opponent of getting into the war in the first place), and Haass (who had no known role in getting into the war and resigned shortly after it started), and the dubious notion that they are “neoconservatives” who will direct us into war with Iran.

                 Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Will Truman says:

                WillT, because Armitage kept mum as the whole shitstorm went down, that he was the leaker.  He is a disgrace, as a man and a human being.  And he got away with it.  Mostly.Report

              • He didn’t keep mum, though. Once he realized that he was the source, he spoke to Powell about it. Powell’s people told the Justice Department. Fitzgerald allegedly knew about it as early as 2003. The only people he didn’t tell were the press, and he (presumably) wasn’t supposed to.Report

              • Tom Van Dyke in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

                Mebbe you’re right, Will, but Armitage as the leaker didn’t come out until well after the shitstorm was over.  It was his responsibility to go out front, not just report it to those who buried it.  Heinous.Report

          • Jesse Ewiak in reply to Will Truman says:

            To be blunt, anybody who was in the discussions of the Iraq War in the White House and didn’t resign/speak out/do something before the war started I consider just as culpable as Bush and Cheney. Perhaps, even more so, because they put a ‘respectable’ varnish on the whole horror show (see Powell at the UN). So, I have no faith that the same thing wouldn’t happen with Iran, Syria, or some other poor Middle East country, especially since Haass wrote an article saying regime change was the only way to fix Iran less than two years ago.

            The CFR is “centrist” the same way a lot of “centrist” organizations are – at the end of the day, they come down on the right side of the ledger, but still expect to be called centrist. Yes, I’m well-aware right-winger’s don’t like the CFR. Doesn’t mean they’re center-left or even centrist in any sense of the word.

            Outside of Paul, the truth is, there’s not going to be a dime’s difference between any Republican’s foreign policy if they get elected.Report

        • E.D. Kain in reply to Jesse Ewiak says:

          But I never endorsed Huntsman. I simply said that a same GOP would make him the nominee. Maybe I’m not accurately in my assessment of his politics but I never said I’d vote for him.Report

          • Nob Akimoto in reply to E.D. Kain says:

            I think your general assessment is on, in so far as it does suggest Huntsman’s not as interested in culture wars issues as he is in the technocratic aspects of governance.

            He is however, pretty conventionally conservative in a lot of areas, including having a cabinet bench of Scowcroft/Powell group (and probably Baker-ite) foreign policy hands. Which is not such a bad thing…Baker’s an idiot when it comes to domestic policy, but his foreign policy chops were decent.Report

      • Herb in reply to E.D. Kain says:

        Re: gay marriage. Obama is hardly a champion of that cause.

        Hmmm….maybe not a champion, but certainly not a foe. His administration is not defending DOMA in court, ended DADT, and Obama has personally even sent a congratulations letter to the first gay couple married in NY (on official White House stationary no less).

        I think it’s safe to say we would not see any of that stuff from a Republican president…even Huntsman.

         Report

  9. Joe Carter says:

    ***I think he’s playing tough on defense when his actual positions are much more cautious.***

    But aren’t his “actual positions” what he says he will do? Why should we believe him on one point and think he is disingenuous on the other? How do we know the Iran saber-rattling is not his “true” position and the other is a pose?

    ***Huntsman would hardly be a champion for those who are against it.***

    I think you might be surprised. Huntsman’s position on civil marriage for homosexuals is basically the same as James Dobson’s. To think that a guy who supports DOMA and wants the support of the GOP would not be a champion for those who are against it seems not to fit the evidence.

    Huntsman has a fairly conservative record on social issues and is rather neo-connish on foreign policy. But because he believes in global warming (sorta) a lot of people seem to assume that he’s really some closeted center-left leaning centrist. I don’t see that there is any evidence for that.

    It seems that, like Ron Paul in 2010 and Obama in 2008, a lot of people are reading into Huntsman what they want to see.Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Joe Carter says:

      Well you may be right.Report

      • b-psycho in reply to E.D. Kain says:

        Don’t take this as an insult, but…sometimes I get the feeling you scramble around for someone to support and some way of rationalizing it to reconcile with what you actually want because you’re trying to avoid rejecting the system that puts such false choices before you as representation in the first place.  It sounds like “there’s still hope yet” no matter how many times it kicks you.

         

         Report

        • E.D. Kain in reply to b-psycho says:

          This is intended more as analysis than a show of support though.Report

          • Tom Van Dyke in reply to E.D. Kain says:

            Surely you know that the affectionate and attentive EDK reader already knows where this is going in the coming year.

            The substantive difference between Romney and Huntsman is that one is the frontrunner and likely GOP nominee and the other is dead meat.Report

          • Jesse Ewiak in reply to E.D. Kain says:

            But it’s an analysis that doesn’t actually look at the fact’s on the ground. If you want to say Huntsman should be the GOP nominee because he’s an actual conservative with a conservative record, then say that. When you throw in things that amount to, “look, he doesn’t hate the gheys like those other cranks” or “he’ll basically be the same as Obama on most things”, that’s when people ding you. Because it’s simply not true. A Huntsman Presidency would be far different from a second Obama term. Maybe not as different than a Gingrich or Bachmann Presidency, but far different nonetheless. His actual record in Utah shows that.Report

  10. Robert Cheeks says:

    The series of Ron Paul blogs and comments here at the League have me leaning in support of the anti-abortion doctor. Romney and Huntsman are RINO/Neocon pukes. We need to restore the ground. In fact that should be his slogan, “Restore the Ground!”Report

  11. There are a few problems with Jon Huntsman. The first one is the fact that not only does he have Super PAC money, but his Super PAC is funded, at least in part by his dad and Huntsman Corporation. The other problem is that he is an apologist for China. He’s for Corportism not Capitalism, for Free not Fair Trade. We need someone who is for Capitalism and someone who is for Fair Trade. Someone who is Free To Lead, who doesn’t have a PAC or a Super PAC. We need Gov. Buddy Roemer.Report