Former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman will give the commencement address at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on May 17th.
He has also been interviewed recently by Larry King on his online PoliticKing series, with the interview available on You Tube!
He is involved in leadership of a group called NO LABELS, which purpose is to stop the divisiveness on Capitol Hill and bring solutions to our domestic and foreign policy problems.
Barack Obama was concerned that Huntsman might be the GOP Presidential nominee in 2012, and has very high respect for him.
This author has certainly made clear over the years of his blog of his admiration and respect for Jon Huntsman, who he sees as the ONLY legitimate candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2016. He is very knowledgeable, very informed, very impressive as a public speaker, has a handsome manner about him, a warm personality that fits what we need in the Presidency in the future, if there is to be a viable alternative to Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. When one compares Huntsman to ANY other Republican who might run for President, they all come across as laughable by comparison. Their intelligence level, their compassion, their understanding of what really affects the middle class and the poor, and their understanding of the world, all demonstrate massive gaps!
No one else has his breadth of experience, particularly in foreign policy, so important for the next term, other than Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, but he also has proved he can lead as Governor and get things done.
His problem is the right wing extremism of the Republican Party, and the evil Tea Party Movement, which are likely to prevent any chance of his being a serious candidate for the nomination, unless he chooses to run as an independent or third party candidate, but if he does that, it will insure the Democrats, who have the edge in the Electoral College anyway, will keep the White House!
Huntsman was correct when he told Larry King about the void of leadership in the GOP nowadays, and he is the one who can infuse that leadership. His National Strategic Agenda with No Labels is the most comprehensive plan to unify the country on its major issues and advance solutions. His credentials speak for themselves. Won reelection as Governor with 77%, Chairman of the Western Governors Association covering 19 states and the only recent GOP candidate with any foreign policy experience. Agree Ron, he is the only legitimate candidate on the GOP’s horizon!
Ronald writes,
“[Utah 16th Gov. Jon Huntsman’s] problem is the right wing extremism of the Republican Party, and the evil Tea Party Movement, which are likely to prevent any chance of his being a serious candidate for the nomination, unless he chooses to run as an independent or third party candidate, but if he does that, it will insure the Democrats, who have the edge in the Electoral College anyway, will keep the White House!”
The problem is the PARTY. That’s the Republican Party’s No. 1 problem. From an electoral standpoint, Jon Huntsman in is in the correct party for Utah. But had he been a governor from his birth state of California, it’s likely he would have been a Democrat. (Especially after the 1980s. Hunstman was born in 1960, the year preceding the 44th president of the United States Barack Obama.)
Despite all the noise, from one week or one month to the next, the Republican Party is famous for cowing down to the “electable” candidate with becoming the official nominee. They’ll probably do that again in 2016, especially if Florida 43rd Gov. Jeb Bush chooses to compete, continues to get the campaign donations from the U.S. Supreme Court’s rubber-stamped wealthy elites, and ends up winning the party nomination. After all, ever since the 1950s, all prevailing Republican presidential/vice-presidential tickets have included a Nixon or Bush. An interesting statement of a redundant Team Red.
Given we’re in a presidential realignment period (kicked off in 2008) for the Democrats, it may be hopeless for the Republicans to back another Bush. (He polls lately insignifcantly better than other “contenders” in general-election match-ups against perceived Demcoratic frontrunner, and former First Lady and New York U.S. Sen., Hillary Clinton.)
Rand Paul, the Junior U.S. senator from Kentucky, could be fun. I dig how he’s a libertarian but is against LGBT persons. Funny and senseless. But he’s a Republican and, down the line, a Republican who is also a libertarian. (Sure.) So, Rand Paul supposedly being his own maverick-like outcast (a la 2008 nominee and Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain) is weak. He, not unlike Huntsman, is in the right party for his home state. Nationwide, he can’t see his policies.
In bringing this back to Jon Huntsman: The odds are against him because of the limited map for the Republicans; the realignment favoring the Democrats (where 207 electoral votes immediately come from double-digit “blue” states not “red” once after the 1980s); and that Huntsman would be more nationally electable if he were out of Utah and in his birth state California as a Democrat. (I mention this, in part, because Bill Clinton was the only U.S. president from a state not among the Top 10, or even Top 20, in the last 100 years.) And I think Jon Huntsman knows all this. Perhaps he’ll run anyway because, not unlike his fellow 2012 Republican presidential contenders, there really is no losing for running for president.