And Then There Were Five

Jon Huntsman threw in the towel yesterday.

Just seven months after throwing his hat in the ring, the longshot GOP presidential contender whose campaign was branded “lackluster” almost before he launched it called it quits.

A centrist Republican with significant foreign policy expertise, Huntsman did poorly in the Iowa caucuses – snagging just 745 votes to Robotron Romney’s 30,015 and Crazy Lady Bachmann’s 6,073 – and placed behind Romney and Peevish Ron Paul in the New Hampshire primary on January 10.

Some called him dull – the Daily Beast wrote that he “couldn’t light a fire with a gas can” – and while thinking people hoped his candidacy would gain traction, today’s Republican Party clearly isn’t dominated by that kind of voter. (I wouldn’t expect someone who speaks fluent Mandarin and has seven kids and $15 million in the bank to be “dull” but what do I know?)

Huntsman, who worked in St. Ronnie of Reagan’s White House and was a high-ranking appointee of both Daddy Bush (U.S. Ambassador to Singapore) and Dubya (Deputy U.S. Trade Representative), was also a two-term Governor of Utah who won re-election in 2008 by 78 percent of the vote. President Obama appointed him U.S. Ambassador to China in 2009, a post from which he resigned a year ago to explore a presidential run. After his third place finish in New Hampshire, he quit and endorsed Romney, a fellow Mormon and distant cousin.

One of the worst things about the guy, in my opinion, is how he tried to curry favor with GOP warmongers by proposing a preemptive war with Iran to prevent them from having nukes. Regular “What’s the Diehl?” readers know I’m adamantly opposed to war with Iran and wouldn’t lose any more sleep if they were to acquire nuclear weapons than I already lose because North Korea, Russia, Pakistan, Israel and China have ‘em.

I’m not sure if Huntsman made his proposal before or after Politico reported that a subsidiary of the Huntsman family business, the Huntsman Corporation – a chemical company founded by his father which has $9 billion in revenue and 12,000 employees around the world – was selling millions of dollars worth of polyurethane in Tehran (see “Issue for Jon Huntsman: His family’s Iran business,” June 19, 2011). Polyurethane can be used in solid fuel for Iranian missiles, according to the Politico article.

In fairness, Huntsman put his company assets in a blind trust back in 2004 and was supposedly unaware of these transactions. But still.

On top of that, it always makes me nervous when a Republican calls for “regulatory reform” or refer to the EPA’s “regulatory reign of terror,” as Huntsman did. He’s pro-life, wants to repeal health care reform, supports the death penalty and opposes the assault weapons ban. Clearly, the guy’s not perfect.

On the other hand, Huntsman is against waterboarding, vetoed a repeal of college tuition for illegal immigrants as governor, is on record saying he’s repulsed by the image of a border fence, refused to pledge not to raise taxes or take any other pledges, and supported bringing our soldiers home from Afghanistan. He also supported raising the debt ceiling and expressed opposition to corporate welfare and the tax loopholes they enjoy.

He’s described himself as “more spiritual than religious,” thinks we should wean ourselves from our “heroin-like addiction” to foreign oil – “gas is $13/gallon if we count the cost of troop deployments,” he said – and supports alternative energy and Congress capping greenhouse gas pollution. And he famously tweeted, “To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”

I don’t know what it says about our political process, about politics and the media, about the future of this country when a thoughtful, reasonable, credible, centrist politician who doesn’t make people cringe has no shot at his party’s nomination and is ignored or humored for a few months by the Powers That Be while myopic, unelectable, certifiable loons are propped up by the out-of-touch, disingenuous talking heads on the Boob Tube.

So now the crown on Robotron Romney’s head, the one that proves he’s the anointed one, the frontrunner, the eventual nominee, is shining a little brighter, and Newt “I’m a Pompous Ass” Gingrich and Rick “Google Me” Santorum and the cantankerous old dude with the two first names and the guy with the Texas smirk who has trouble with sets of three will try even harder to grab our collective lapels and force us to focus on them, their soundbites and bullet points and pandering, vacuous stump speeches, insisting that they can fire up voters more than boring ol’ Jon Huntsman did.

I’m no longer a betting man but I’d probably go ahead and order more Oval Office stationary if I were Barack Obama.


P.S. I watched last night’s GOP presidential debate from South Carolina; no wonder Huntsman called it quits. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend two hours on stage in Myrtle Beach with these callous, pompous, pandering, disingenuous politicians either.


Sources: Ontheissues.org, the Daily Beast, USA Today, Politico.