The Politico’s Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei start out in the right direction, but, quickly lose their way: Buzzkill: The problem with Jon Huntsman Hype
From afar, it’s easy to get swept up by the hype: Jon Huntsman is accomplished, handsome, smart, and his civility message has appeal beyond the meat-eaters who dominate this early phase of the Republican presidential campaign.
Other than for the media and the GOP squishes (the wishy washy barely Republicans, many of whom swooned over Obama and gently chide him, but, freak out over Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, and Michelle Bachmann), who is getting excited?
This is the reason his small base, largely in the media — the select group of pundits like Mark Halperin and the “Morning Joe†stars, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski — have been unabashed in their Huntsman swooning. We have our share of swooners here at POLITICO, too.
See? Anyhow, the media, which is mostly liberal, swoons over him is that they know if he somehow won the GOP nomination, his candidacy would excite Republicans even less than McCain’s did. And, if he managed to win the presidency, he would be Bill Clinton lite.
Unfortunately, after a mere two paragraphs, the story takes the road to stupid
They see in the former Utah governor someone with the potential to remake Republican politics, and dislodge the Washington conventional wisdom that the main variable regarding President Barack Obama’s re-election is the state of the economy rather than the opposing candidate.
????? All the candidates so far have spent most of their time excoriating Obama and his handling of the economy, and, well, everything else. They have mostly ignored each other.
For all his obvious gifts, and his potential appeal as a general election candidate, it seems to us Huntsman has two even more obvious problems. He’s got the wrong issues for a Republican nominating contest. And he’s got the wrong persona, especially for this angry moment in GOP politics.
Potential appeal for whom? Team Obama? But, yeah, he does have the wrong issues. Quick, someone name a Conservative position that he holds………I can’t think of any, either. But, hey, all you Conservatives are angry.
There’s a reason he barely has a pulse in the polls. He speaks so softly that even his aides sometimes have trouble hearing him at events. He is making civility a cornerstone of his campaign, at a time when Republican voters are ravenous for red-meat conservative policies, and an epochal showdown with Obama.
There’s a reason he barely has a pulse, and it is not because he speaks softly: go back to the part about having “the wrong issues for a Republican nominating contest.” A candidate must speak and attract the GOP base, known as conservatives, during the primaries. Instead, Huntsman is going after the….independents(?), instead of you angry, uncivil Conservatives who simply want a conservative who has conservative leanings be your candidate.
The GOP base, sensing weakness in Obama, wants a brawler, the sort of Republican who prospered in dozens of races in the 2010 mid-terms. This is the main reason so many activists are clamoring for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to get in the race. Huntsman, by contrast, is running as a diplomat.
With all due respect, we tried this “diplomat” thing with Bush, who tried again and again to work with Democrats (who would turn around and stab him in the back), as well as being a big, big spender. And a brawler is needed, someone willing to take on the Chicago politics of Team Obama, who will fight tough against whomever wins the GOP nomination. We need someone who isn’t going to be polite when the gloves come off. And, mostly, we need a tough Conservative, who will stand by their Conservative principles (we shouldn’t expect perfection: they are politicians, of course). There’s a reason why the GOP, and the TEA Party, won so handily during the 2010 mid-terms: they pushed conservative principles, not the squishy Democrat Lite ones that so many of the Republican insiders and “intelligentsia” push.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
[…] 6-26-11:Â William Teach at Pirate’s Cove explains the media and RINO fascination with Huntsman. […]
The fact that Mika Brzezinski gushes over Huntsman is not surprising given that her father Zbignew is a one-worlder elitist. Huntsman is cut out of the same cloth, working to erase national sovereignty. Anyone who has done time in the US diplomatic corps has also been indoctrinated into the CFR and its globalist UN-loving mindset. Independents right now come in two varieties: clueless and clued in to the whole pro-wrestling aspect of American politics. The former probably won’t make it to the polls for the primaries, the latter have already checked Huntsman’s name against the requisite Insider membership lists and found him serving interests opposed to our Constitution.
Exactly. And no matter how much the media and squishy Republicans push Huntsman, he will gain no traction. Huntsman was a fool for thinking that just because the Dems were saying he could beat Obama and the elitists and Media wanted him in, that he could go anywhere.