Posted on 12/03/2016 8:41:10 PM PST by 198ml
AP: Huntsman among secretary of State possibilities © Getty President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly open to expanding his short list of candidates for secretary of State to include former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.
Huntsman was one of the possibilities reported by The Associated Press on Saturday night, citing a source close to the Trump transition.
Huntsman, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, previously served as ambassador to China and speaks Mandarin.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Oops...wrong libertarian ;)
That made me laugh so much that it actually hurt.
Huntsman spent his entire political career as a Republican establishment butt boy. He apparently liked so much that he later bent over and took it from the China Lobby.
Nothing Libertarian about him.
Glad you had a good laugh on me...
However, he does lean Libertarian...
Here ya go...
Eh, this is libertarian and HE said it...
“In my party, compromise cannot be seen as analogous to treason, which it has been recently,” he said. “You will have to have some compromise built in, and perhaps even on the marginal rates going up for a certain income category. My going-in position would be: Let’s work on phasing out all the deductions and loopholes. There is a trillion dollars there. Let’s see where that leaves us and move forward before you start willy-nilly raising taxes.”
This might seem like the policy bulwark of an increasingly centrist-minded Republican. Huntsman announced on Wednesday that he was joining No Labels, a nonpartisan group hoping to drum up support for bi- or post-partisanship. But in discussing the future of the GOP and how it adjusts to the country’s changing demographics, he insisted Republicans “don’t need to shift our ideology,” just rediscover that “LIBERTARIAN streak.”
Take, for instance, gay marriage:
“States ought to be entitled to do whatever they want,” he said.
Or government spending:
“We weren’t coming from a position of strength [in 2012],” he said. “We sounded like hypocrites talking about spending when that was all we did under George W. Bush.”
Or foreign policy:
“We used to be the party that put out wars: Eisenhower, Korea; Nixon, Vietnam; Reagan, the Cold War. And here we talk about starting wars. That’s all Republicans on the defense side seem to want to talk about — not negotiating a way forward diplomatically, as we had under earlier Republican administrations, but always falling back on the war option as if we haven’t had enough over the past 12 years.”
Tonally as well, Huntsman insisted his party has to evolve. The cultivation of knee-jerk conflict, he argued, has produced remarkably little fruit. For four years,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/jon-huntsman-republican-primary-2012_n_2206336.html
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Here is another quote from “Nothing Libertarian about him” HUntsman:
Jon Huntsman believes the answer to Republican woes is to adopt the agenda that people mistakenly ascribed to Mitch Daniels:
And if we don’t wind up at the end of the exercise with a mission statement that is one sentence long, then we’re toast. That one statement ought to be, ‘Balance the budgets and get out of people’s lives.’ And you ought to build the party around that because we have strong LIBERTARIAN roots that go way back to the early days of the Republican Party.
Others saw a Huntsman as libertarian leaning:
“During the GOP primaries, most young libertarians rolled their eyes but had their preferred candidates who at least nodded in the direction of LIBERTARIANISM. That included a bit of Jon Huntsman, a whole lot of Gary Johnson, and an even greater amount of Ron Paul. “
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/dear-glenn-beck-please-dont-call-yourself-a-libertarian/
I know very little about Huntsman other than witnessing a very weird, very arrogant and condescending press conference a few years back. He seems to have harbored delusions regarding the Presidency at one point. Doesn’t feel good at all.
No.
“Huntsman is what you’d get if you dressed David Gergen in Mormon underwear and got him elected to public office - a squish RINO with his lips firmly attached to collective backside of the Washington establishment.”
As a Mormon. I have to say that’s just plain funny. Great analogy.
Anybody but Romney.
Huntsman is a creep, an elitist, a RINO, and a Mormon in the same vein as Romney. He does know China well, though, so maybe DJT should assign him back to Taiwan or China again. SOS is too important for a one-trick pony whose only “trick” is China.
Oh goody. More fodder for the Hand-wringer’s Association.
Till Trump announces his pick, I encourage folks to stop getting panties in a wad over a story from The Hill.
After all the BS spewed from The Hill over the last 18+ months regarding Trump you’d think some FReepers would be a bit wiser these days.
Huntsman is an extreme leftist (and weak)!
Anyone but Romney.
Mitt can be ambassador to Scotland. ;) Consigned to hear nice things about Trump 24/7.
No! What is wrong with all these Dem-lite Trump choices?
Worse idea than Romney.
I like all those quotes. I just don’t trust him. He appeared extremely arrogant in interviews I’ve seen.
I don’t know why we seem to have such a shallow bench for SoS.
He strikes me as somewhat of a chameleon—seems to change his color to suit where he is at. Doesn’t go “fullon board” anything—from quotes he dances with being a libertarian, some claim he is conservative, some claim he is establishment, etc.
I agree with your assessment regarding interviews, etc.
I don’t know why he is being considered—I guess it is his experience with China. But SOS deals with many besides the Chinese.
Also, fact that Beck has had involvement with his family concerns me a lot!
Agree!
Know someone who works for him. I hear he and his wife are very kind.
That doesn’t mean he should be Sec State.
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