“Today I am suspending my campaign and supporting the candidate who is best-equipped to defeat the president and return conservative leadership to the White House: Governor Mitt Romney.” – Jon Huntsman
Ok, I know American political primaries always end up doing something along these lines, but… This disappointed me a little. President Obama did the same thing – during the Democratic primary, he, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden went after each other with gusto (themselves, or through proxies, as is the way), and yet Senator Biden became Vice President Biden, and Senator Clinton became Secretary of State Clinton (especially confusing after then-candidate Obama went after Clinton on foreign policy…).
I like Governor Huntsman, I really do (I remember writing about him in January 2009, actually, thinking he’d be a great candidate for 2016…). A good friend worked for his campaign in the North East, too, but I’ve only just recently spoken to him about it. But I think the way the Republican Party is right now is anathema to his type of politics, temperament and so forth. He could never win in this political environment, even though he is the type of politician we need in America – regardless of what you think of his politics, his demeanour and comportment is exactly that of a statesman. As Paul Waldman put it in an American Prospect online editorial,
“In order for Huntsman ’16 to have any chance, the party is going to have to move to the center between now and then or at least be open to somebody who is neither a fire-breather like this year’s other also-rans, nor the kind of panderer who will gladly don an entirely new set of ideological robes if that's what the base seems to want, as Romney has done.”
Anyway, here’s a clip from Rachel Maddow’s show last night about Huntsman’s bowing out and endorsement of Romney:
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Here’s Lawrence O’Donnell’s take on Huntsman’s Romney endorsement (only the first half is specifically about Huntsman, before the story moves on to Santorum and Gingrich):
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While I’m on the subject of Huntsman, here’s his interview with Stephen Colbert, from the October 24th episode of Colbert Report:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Jon Huntsman | ||||
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I watched this with Alyssa, and both of us were confused. Is it me, or does Governor Huntsman seem to forget that he’s a Republican? He sounds almost like a Democrat…
Photo Credit: Eric Thayer/Reuters
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