So today brings news that Jon Huntsman will officially end his Presidential campaign in South Carolina on Monday morning. Now this comes as a shock to…uhhh…errr…maybe Jon Huntsman’s sons? No…maybe his wife? Probably not. Well, I would say it comes as a shock to Huntsman himself but I seriously doubt that’s true either.
Now there’s two very interesting aspects to this story for me. One, is why Huntsman stayed in the race this long when he had to know he didn’t have a shot. And another is why he even joined it in the first place.
As the moderate, wealthy Mormon ex-Governor from a very established, rich family, Huntsman had to know that a lot of the crowd he was going after would be occupied by Romney. He had to know that Romney (a phony robot who’s spent most of his life running for the Presidency his father George Romney didn’t get) would get the nomination this time, and, if he didn’t, it wouldn’t be because another Mormon ex-Governor from a rich family stole it from him. After all, Romney had a four year head start on Huntsman as the guy who ran last time and already had the ground network (and funds) set up to dominate next time around.
To me, if Huntsman really wanted to be President he should have stayed on as Obama’s ambassador to China, let Romney run against Obama, lose, and then ran in 2016. Then Romney would be out of the way, thus not splitting a lot of the same crowd. The Tea Party ultra rightwing-ism would have worked itself out and the Republican Party would be championing moderates again. Also, the country would have gotten all of its “Anti-Mormon Prejudice” out of its system, and it wouldn’t be a thing for Huntsman. “Call me crazy” (as Huntsman famously said on Twitter) but to me it was like he never really wanted the job…but maybe wanted to do some preemptive P.R. for his party as the “sane candidate,” sensing the Bachmanns and Perrys of the GOP coming out to say stupid shit and wanting to show that there are still a handful of Republicans out there that aren’t like that.
Anyway, regardless of what Huntsman was thinking or not thinking, I’ll miss seeing him around the GOP. It’s true that he often did come off as the most sane person in the room, but that was mostly by default as Romney was too busy sucking up to the Tea Party (I suspect this will gradually change when he officially gets the nomination). The Huntsman campaign was sometimes thrilling when it made it clear it wouldn’t take idiotic, gimmicky “No tax” pledges or pander to anti-Science morons. Even though Mormon is only one letter away from moron, Huntsman (and Romney) proved that, at least for rich ex-governors, you don’t have to be an idiot to be a Republican…but it sure makes it easier.