Huntsman Heresy: GOP’s Last Chance
For a long-time Democrat who loves his country much more than his party, it may seem like an agonizing choice: a sane Republican to oppose Barack Obama or one of the revolving front-runners who would be easier to beat next November.
The question is brought on by the serial implosions of Bachmann, Perry, Cain et al with Newt being teed up for next 15 minutes of fame on the dog-and-pony debate circuit.
The answer is easy. No American wants to play Russian roulette with the country’s future so, in that spirit, a political strategy for Jon Huntsman Jr., whom I would not support in the general election but who, free of the Tea Party’s yoke, might restore some sanity to the campaign:
Right now, Huntsman has practically fallen out of the polls—-and for good reason. His contortions to fit the crazy contest have made him invisible, and his efforts to slip the bonds of Obama-bashing orthodoxy look lame and wishy-washy.
Yet he is poised to separate himself from the pack, if he can muster the courage to do it. In the next debate in Washington on November 22nd, he could break through and give the country something to be thankful for by embracing a heresy that so far has dared not speak its name—-renouncing the GOP’s rush toward an extremist cliff and offering an aggressive alternative to bringing back traditional Republicans and Independents next year.
What does he have to lose? His 3 percent in the national polls? Huntsman has been working hard in New Hampshire, and a super PAC is now running ads there, supporting him as “someone we can trust as a conservative.”
Yesterday, he was at the liberal Brookings Institution, criticizing loopy proposals of Romney, Perry and Cain, noting that “you’ve got to at least pass the straight-face test in terms of what can be done with Congress so it’s not laughed out on day one.”
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4 Responses to “Huntsman Heresy: GOP’s Last Chance”
[...] Huntsman Heresy: GOP’s Last Chance (themoderatevoice.com) [...]
With Cain and Perry faltering, there is room for Gov. Gary Johnson.
“Depending on the issue, most of his views are either far more conservative than most Republicans and far more liberal than most Democrats, and they don’t fit into the traditional coalitions that make for a winning GOP nominee. And Johnson knows it.”
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/gary-johnson-gets-chance-230947988.html
The fact that the GOP electorate has him as the last one they’d pick seems to me to be a strong indicator of his ability to do well in the general election. So far they seem to have a solid preference for fiscally insane, pro-1%, middle class blaming, arrogant fools who simply know what to say to a gullible group of voters to push their buttons. Huntsman is by far the most reasonable candidate of the bunch, seems to have a clue, and I’m fairly convinced this is why he is dead last in the polls.
In the end, the Democrats will cheer him until he actual runs against one of them, then it will be back to same character assassination. They will “discover” he was all along really a conservative ogre who wants to ruin the country. (After all, he will take positions that don’t agree with the Democratic platform).
I like Huntsman a lot. He is probably the only one in both parties I might vote for. But if is willing to take advice from partisan Democrats, it would show he is too dumb to be president. The partisans of parties don’t really want moderates of any strip, they just want to try and gain a partisan advantage by splitting their foes.