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Will Jon Huntsman’s Sanity Sell?


Oct 11, 2011 by

The clearest voice for sanity in the GOP race has gone all in for tonight’s New Hampshire debate with a foreign-policy speech that actually makes sense. But will sanity sell?

“We still have remnants of a top-heavy, post-cold war infrastructure,” Jon Huntsman says. “It needs to be transformed to reflect the 21st Century world and the growing asymmetric threats we face.”

The former ambassador to China argues that “America once had a foreign policy based on containment–the containment of Communism. Today, we need a foreign policy based on expansion–the expansion of America’s competitiveness and engagement in the world through partnerships and trade agreements…

“Simply advocating more ships, more troops and more weapons is not a viable path forward. We need more agility, more intelligence and more economic engagement with the world.”

As he has before, Huntsman calls for an end to the war in Afghanistan, characterizing it as “cultural arrogance to think we can make tribal leaders into democratic leaders,” and advocates counterterrorism as an alternative to nation-building.

For Huntsman, who has closed his national campaign headquarters in Florida, the New Hampshire primary is make-or-break and this debate may be his Last Hurrah to move up in the race.

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6 Comments

  1. Allen
    October 11, 2011 | 12:18 pm

    Huntsman sounds like the proverbial Manchurian candidate to me. His supposed sane persona is betrayed by his stalwart defense of China. Defense apparently above all things, one discovers during detailed interviews.

  2. ShannonLeee
    October 11, 2011 | 12:36 pm

    Mitt has a hard enough time being Mormon, Jon is moron #2.

  3. Barky
    October 11, 2011 | 1:28 pm

    I tend to like Huntsman. Seems very level-headed.

    And I do refute most of the “blame China” rhetoric. Yes, they bend many of the WTO rules, and that needs to be fixed, but in reality, we did this to ourselves. It was American corporations & investors who got them their start in their new economy, after all.

  4. rudi
    October 11, 2011 | 2:36 pm

    Which Huntsman are we to believe? The pragmatist you describe or the hawk of Christmas past.
    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/2011/10/10/huntsman-and-iran/

    Jim Antle makes the understatement of the week:

    And by seeming open to preventive war in Iran, Huntsman may not be the ideal candidate for foreign policy restraint.

    Worse than that, it undermines the main argument for why Huntsman should be taken seriously as a candidate: his reputation for greater foreign policy experience and understanding. In a mostly hawkish field that ranges from the ridiculously alarmist (Santorum) to the irresponsibly alarmist (Romney), Huntsman is supposed to possess the sobriety and sanity that other “mainstream” candidates lack. His “I can’t live with a nuclear-armed Iran” line may be nothing more than lip service, but the fact that he is willing to indulge one of the most dangerous ideas in current foreign policy debate badly weakens the one thing that distinguishes him from the other candidates.

  5. Barky
    October 11, 2011 | 3:24 pm

    Thanks for that, Rudi.

    It seems politicians are like fisherman: always willing to switch to more effective bait.

  6. JSpencer
    October 11, 2011 | 5:08 pm

    I really doubt the current crop of republicans will vote for anyone who doesn’t throw them red meat, which is why Romney isn’t more exciting to them, and which is why Huntsman won’t last.