Posted on 03/02/2009 7:47:36 AM PST by greyfoxx39
There was at least one 2012 presidential contender missing from the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this weekend, traditionally a testing ground for any Republican even remotely considering a White House bid.
That could be in part because Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. risked getting booed off the stage for some of his views.
-SNIP
After running for governor in 2004 as a supporter of a ballot measure that year that not only banned gay marriage but also civil unions, Huntsman made national news earlier this month by saying that he had changed his mind on civil unions.
Largely under the radar of the national media and even out of sight of many in his own party, Huntsman, 48, is emerging as an articulate, unapologetic and unlikely spokesman for a new brand of Republicanism, one that seems out of vogue at a time when many in the GOP attribute their fall from power to a deviation from right-wing orthodoxy.
Huntsman thinks the party's challenge is more profound, owing less to its excessive spending practices during the Bush era than to sweeping demographic and political changes that threaten to consign Republicans to a long-term minority status and confine their appeal to narrow sections of the country.
The party needs to be more intellectually rigorous, and to compete for the votes of the young, the elites and minorities, he said in an interview with POLITICO. To do so, the GOP needs to tack toward the middle on environment, gay rights and immigration. And, yes, Ronald Reagan is to be admired – but as much for his oft-overlooked pragmatism as for his conservative principles.
It’s a view that places him out of step with the prevailing conservative sentiment among most members of the GOP base, but it’s also one that makes Huntsman, a wealthy Mormon scion, the first 2012 Republican primary prospect to unabashedly embrace a middle ground somewhere between moderate Northeastern Republicanism and Sun Belt conservatism.
-SNIP
To become viable again to the 40-and-under bloc that went overwhelmingly for President Obama and will comprise the future voting majority in the country, Huntsman argued the GOP must shift on two issues as generational as they are political: gay rights and the environment.
-SNIP
Compounding his challenge, though, is Huntsman’s religion – he hails from a rich and powerful Latter Day Saints family with deep roots in Utah.
As Mitt Romney showed in 2008, a Mormon background can be a hindrance in running in evangelical-dominated early primary states such as Iowa and South Carolina.
Clarify please, I am only a 5th or a 6th generation Utahan, Families, since we settled in 1848 my Grand Daughter would be the seventh or eighth.
I am sixth generation. My son is seventh and his son is eighth.
My husband is seventh generation, his son (my son) is eighth and our grandson is ninth.
It’s highly possible.
I didn't call you any names, and I would appreciate in-kind treatment. I only speak one language - winner. I'm fluent in winner and such, I know the losing language when I hear it. And frankly, I'm tired of losing. I'm tired of Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi setting the agenda in America. But, as long as the GOP is held hostage by one or two issues, that are really only important to less than a third of the country, the direction of the country isn't going to change.
It may not be a GOP website, but it's certainly a GOP thread - "Huntsman takes aim at GOP". Conservatives only make up 29% of the population. Without moderates and centrists, the GOP will be banished as irrelevant and immaterial, taking any hopes of conservatives rolling back the socialist agenda with it.
Moderates I have no problem with as long as they are people who listen to reason and common sense. As far as “winners” go, the republicans have a habit of picking so called “winners” who end up being bigger disasters than the democrats even when they win.
The title of the thread says GOP, but I will remind you again this is a conservative website. Don’t be surprised when you get conservative answers. In fact, we conservatives tend to speak out on republicans more and more because they are becoming so much like the democrats.
Again if you want to worry about the GOP go talk to them. We are concerned about conservatives and the ideals that used to form the republican party. If they continue to go your way, the way of the democrats, they will already be seen as irrelevant and immaterial. They will go the way of the Whigs.
Socialism will fall of it’s own accord. It always has because it is a failed system. We have to constantly remind the world that there is another way. You don’t do that by giving up and becoming socialist yourself.
Perhaps the problem in general is that leftists who claim to be Catholic, Jewish, Mormon etc. are infiltrating into these groups and creating confusion.
The Left had done this for years.
Back in the 1940’s FBI double agent Herbert Philbrick was told after he joined the Communist Party to retain membership in his Baptist church.
Philbrick was sent by the Communists to attend meetings they wanted to take over and call himself a “Baptist” at those meetings.
Like Romney, he has unlimited funds for a run at this thing.
OOOoooh!
Who knew??
It's is STILL ok to call them...
Apostate or...
ABOMinable or...
CORRUPT:
If you are the FOUNDER of MORMONism; that is!
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