Posted on 01/06/2012 6:05:01 AM PST by Wolf13
Would conservatives support a presidential bid by David Petraeus?
The Iraq surge architect isn't a candidate. But for years prominent conservatives from Rep. Peter King to Andrew Breitbart have touted the soldier-scholar as a dream conservative candidate to take on Barack Obama.
The question is, if Petraeus had run, would his service in the Obama administration -- first as head of U.S. Central Command, then as Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan and now as CIA Director -- have counted against him?
It's safe to say conservatives wouldn't have re-purposed the old "General Betray-Us" moniker for the man who has become one of President Obama's most trusted advisors on national security and intelligence matters. By serving the president, most people understand, Petraeus has been serving the country.
But serving one's country has been seen as a negative factor in former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman's bid for the Republican nomination. Huntsman served as the Obama administration's ambassador to China from August 2009 until May 2011. That service, and the way in which he ended it, is a major reason why his candidacy has floundered.
Though he doesn't always talk like one, Jon Huntsman is a conservative.
He combines many of the best qualities of the other Republican candidates. He has the deep policy knowledge of Newt Gingrich, the business background of Mitt Romney, and the record of conservative governance of Rick Perry. And his pro-life credentials, both personally and professionally, are as impressive as those of Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum or Ron Paul.
What's more, Huntsman's foreign policy background is unmatched in the Republican field. He held foreign policy positions in the administrations of the last three Republican presidents.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Hear, hear!
Huntsman’s record is that of a successful (and popular) conservative governor. He is certainly leagues ahead of Mitt Romney on that score. The fact that independents are also not averse to him, means it is hard to imagine how Obama could beat him in a general election.
Those that don’t wish to vote for him because he served as US Ambassador to China, have a valid grievance, though. I disagree with them, but I don’t blame them.
Likewise those who feel passionately about certain specific issues (like climate change and civil unions). I can respect that. What right minded person, couldn’t?
It’s the knee-jerk, unthinking, ‘RINO’ yelling, brigade, that I think are unfair in the extreme.
Look at the record, and tell me Mitt Romney is superior to this man.
From what I hear aren’t most military brass liberal?
Look, when you do political office under a Democrat label (and certainly ambassadors who are appointed by Presidents do do that), then your next step down the line is not as a Republican, but more likely as a Republican In Name Only.
We still have one of the old time Souvrn' RINOs who started political life running for and winning as a Democrat. There's a Governor who did that ~ and he's running for President.
You can think RINO means whatever it means, but it does mean this ~ a Democrat who did political office and who is running as a Republican.
So, yes, Huntsman, Paul and Perry certainly qualify as RINOs.
1/3 of the Republican tag team bracket were RINOs!
This doesn't happen with the Democrats.
If you think this should be applied only to Leftwingtard Autarchs, do so at the risk that real RINOs will slip in under cover of your darkness of mind.
Here's a thought for you ~ let's say this Huntsman guy won the Presidency. Do you think he would bring bipartisanship to the office and make half his available appointments among Democrats?
Did you see Obama do that? What about Clinton, Carter, LBJ, Kennedy, Truman?
No, you did not.
That's the big risk with a Huntsman ~ once a RINO, always a RINO, and they prefer their own kind.
No way! No How!
Jon Huntsman’s Love Letters (to Obama & the Clintons)
Huntsman's Liberal Policies as Governor Pose Challenge
Huntsman: Climate Change Has Established Scientists Associated With It
Jon Huntsman's Cap and Trade, Stimulus Support and Individual Mandate Past Catches Up to Him
Huntsman in 2009: Stimulus "Probably Wasn't Big Enough"
Find me such a LOVE LETTER from Petraus to Obama or a record of any conversation were he song the praises of everything Obama. You can't compare a weasel to a military hero!
NOTE: "You are a remarkable leader""When we were in Shanghai we got a chance to talk," Axelrod said on CNN's State of the Union. "And he {Huntsman}was very effusive -- this was in the fall of 2009 -- about what the president was doing. He was encouraging on health care, he was encouraging on a whole range of issues. "
Petraeus is not a conservative.
He has described himself as a “Rockefeller Republican.”
In other words, a RINO.
I remember when Petraeus went on a rant about a minister in Florida would threatened to burn a pile of Korans in the parking lot of his church, yet Petraeus said nothing about all the Bibles that were sent to Afghanistan and then burned by our military on orders from “higher ups.”
“From what I hear aren’t most military brass liberal?”
Not in my experience; however, they do tend to get less willing to rock the boat the closer they get to the upper (read “3- and 4-star) level. It seems courage, for some of them, isn’t enough, so they try not to state unconventional positions. Sad, actually, because that’s not what got most of them there.
Colonel, USAFR
who?
How do you defend him on illegal immigration?
“Petraeus is not a conservative.”
I have thought for a while if he ran for POTUS it would be as a Democrat. He sure seems happy to do the bidding of the kenyan.
You are quite correct that the comparisons were, as Herman Cain would put it, “apples and oranges,” but then you fall into the same trap yourself.
An Ambassadorship is not a political role, it is a diplomatic one. Huntsman served his country. How sad it is, that our political climate has reached such a festering state that a patriotic decision to serve the nation is looked upon with bile and scorn, merely because of the identity of the president at the time.
It was not a ‘fashionable’ decision to make, as someone on this thread mentioned. It was a decision that Huntsman must have known would damage him politically in his own party, yet he took the decision anyway.
Some will never be convinced. Describing a gracious ‘thank you’ note (how was that released anyway, and for what purpose? ask yourself) as a ‘love letter’ lends me to feel only great sympathy for the describer, if that is an example of the love letters he has received in his life. How terribly sad.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney gets stronger and stronger, and the party continue their slow but inexorable sleep-walk to disaster, while the one man who might have stopped him, is mocked, ridiculed, and, worse, much worse, ignored.
The term ‘RINO’ is often blasted out in such a scatter-gun fashion that it peppers the innocent and the guilty alike. There ARE people who do this. Your own candidate has probably felt the slings and arrows of outrageous fantasy from these folks, at one stage or another, too.
As for how Huntsman would act as president? I do what I always do with him: I look at his record. His record suggests that he would be the most conservative president since Reagan. Anything else is just idle speculation.
-PJ
You know something I don't!
Actually, the guy I think would do what is right is currently Governor of Ohio.
Huntsman, in fact, went the extra yard in confirming that he saw this as his role by his effusive fawning, during his meeting with Axelrod, "concerning health care... and a whole range of issues"*. As for diplomacy, if writing America's version of Hugo Chavez to tell him, "You are a remarkable leader" (underling in original note) is only an example of Huntsman's style of "gracious" diplomacy, America can only be harmed by a man capable of such blind grovelling!
And if you can only respond by twisting a clearly figurative use of the description "Love Letter" into a literal use to feably deflect the debate to the personal level, don't bother! It would not be worth writing or reading!
*Why should anyone believe Huntsman was not as effusively fawning in person as he was in his "Love Letter?" Even if he denies it, you should be sure that the weasle would have denied the content of the "Love Letter" if the original did not surface.
(underling in original note) = (underlining in original note)
Huntsman more than any other candidate would landslide Obama.
Not likely.
“And if you can only respond by twisting a clearly figurative use of the description “Love Letter” into a literal use to feably deflect the debate to the personal level, don’t bother! It would not be worth writing or reading”
Come on, relax a little. It was only a joke.
My response is quite clear. I take Jon Huntsman at his word when he says he took the sensitive position to serve his country.
You don’t. Fair enough. That’s debate. That’s politics.
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