The caption of this post is what Jon Huntsman said about the GOP back in 2009. It's a true and accurate statement, of course, but it shows the uphill battle Huntsman faces in winning the GOP nomination with the party primaries to some extent controlled by the craziest and most irrational folks in both the GOP and the country at large. An old New Republic story is resurfacing and it will nor doubt not play well among the Kool-Aid drinker set. Of course, the fact that Huntsman recognized the GOP's problem demonstrates one reason why he's the best news for the party's long term prospects. Maybe not for 2012, but perhaps 2016 if the GOP nominates at nut job this go round. Here some highlights from the 2009 story that are just as true today - maybe even more so - than two years ago:*
A virtual unknown only six months ago, Huntsman had burst onto the national radar based largely on his declaration of support for civil unions in February [2009]--a shocking position for the Republican governor of the reddest state in the country. He then started using his new platform to brashly criticize his own party. Politico, which in February dubbed him "the fastest-rising star you have never heard of," by March described him as "an articulate, unapologetic, and unlikely spokesman for a new brand of Republicanism." By May, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was describing Huntsman as "the one person in [the Republican Party] who might be a potential presidential candidate."
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To Huntsman, the economy should be a politician's "focus, laser-like," despite the fact that it doesn't "make for a very colorful and interesting sideshow."
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Huntsman is certainly right: His skillful stewardship of the state's economy is not what propelled him onto the national stage. Huntsman, who was elected in 2004 as a fairly conventional Republican campaigning on a platform of economic development, first began breaking with his party over environmental issues--for instance, signing the bold Western Regional Climate Action Initiative. He then started taking relatively progressive stands on immigration, unions, and education. As opposed to some of the more conservative Republican governors, Huntsman accepted all the money from Obama's stimulus package offered to the state. "Limited government is important," Huntsman explains, "but I need to make sure that we have a government that actually delivers on issues that people expect us to manage competently and well."
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By far his most explosive position has been his support for civil unions this year, a clear shift from his support during his 2004 campaign for Utah's constitutional gay marriage and civil union ban--which his spokeswoman says he now favors repealing. The position is particularly surprising in a state where, according to recent polls, 70 percent of people oppose civil unions. "I've always been in favor of equal rights," he says in explaining his stance. "What would Abraham Lincoln be doing if he were around today?" Huntsman says that he has little patience for the traditional "culture war" issues. "I'm not good at playing those games," he tells me. Huntsman was the only 2012 front-runner not to show at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference.
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But defying all expectations, his popularity barely took a hit, sinking only from 90 to 84 percent. Emboldened, he started taking on the national party, excoriating GOP leaders for their knee-jerk obstructionism and narrow social conservatism. "I don't even know the [Republican] congressional leadership--I have not met them, I don't listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential, completely," he told The Washington Times in a scathing February interview. "Our moral soapbox was completely taken away from us because of our behavior in the last few years."
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In dozens of interviews over the past few weeks, he has characterized Republicans as "devoid of ideas" and "gasping for air," decrying the GOP's "gratuitous partisanship," comparing it to "a very narrow party of angry people," and describing its strategy as "obstruct and obfuscate … grousing and complaining." When I ask him who he sees as potential leaders for the party, he says with a mischievous grin, "I don't know that we have one."
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To be sure, Huntsman is no Republican In Name Only; his positions on abortion and gun control still hew quite closely to the Republican line. But he sees himself within a broader GOP tradition. "[Republicans] forget sometimes what Lincoln taught us about individual dignity and equal rights, what Roosevelt taught us about the environment and big stick diplomacy, about American power abroad and how we project it," he says, folding his hands beneath his chin and staring out his window. "We have Nixon who created the EPA, for heaven's sake. People forget that."
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If Huntsman was planning to run for president, why would he move so brazenly to the left at a time when the GOP seems to be heading rightward? The most obvious reason is that he may actually be a moderate. "I'm not very good at tags," he tells me. "I just try to do my best, and maybe that makes me a pragmatist." He joins a long tradition of moderate Republicans from Utah, despite--or perhaps because of--the fact that the state is the reddest in the country, with the GOP holding every statewide office and more than two-thirds of the state legislature. The GOP lock on Utah politics allows the party to welcome a broader swathe of politicians, and breed leaders who are less combative and ideological than their besieged colleagues in more competitive states. And if Huntsman has learned anything from the failed Mitt Romney campaign, it is that the only thing worse for a Republican than not being a conservative is being a phony conservative.
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But on a more strategic level, Huntsman was forced to fill the political space that had been left for him by the current front-runners--including Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, and Romney himself--who were all pandering to the conservative wing of the party. Huntsman would have had a tough time competing for the same constituency as them; better to take the long shot that Republicans would be looking for a moderate in three years. In the meantime, he could sit back and let the more conservative candidates beat each other up.
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Huntsman has a good role-model for his duck-and-run strategy: George H. W. Bush, who went to China as ambassador in the 1970s while Republicans dealt with the Watergate fallout. He was able to avoid the Republican bloodbath at the 1974 polls, and return relatively unscathed from the fracas--eventually making his way to the White House. Heading to Beijing will allow Huntsman to sit out the mess that will probably envelop the GOP over the next few years, and return as a fresh face in time to gear up for 2016. It is also likely that some of his more controversial positions, particularly on civil unions, will become less toxic by then.
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The ambassadorship also equips Huntsman well for a later presidential run. Representing the United States to perhaps our most important strategic rival will give him top-notch foreign policy chops. And since the 2016 race could well be a competition for heir to the Obama mantle, Huntsman will now have bipartisan cred to add to his youth and proven pragmatism in claiming it; an appointment from the man himself doesn't hurt either.
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Quoting political historian Theodore White, he told me when we spoke last month that he was happy to defer "to the inevitable cycles of history. Some of them are so inexorable you can't fight against them." In deciding to go to China, he seemed to be conceding that he wasn't going to win the battle for the GOP's soul this time around. Better to wait for the cycles of history to align in your favor.
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Another big question will be how much Huntsman is willing to sell his soul to the deranged elements of the Christianists and the Tea Party. Yes, politics needs pragmatism. But it also needs some moral solidity and an unwillingness to be a cheap political whore,
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