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Am I the only one who thinks Jon Huntsman is a plant? Huntsman chose Liberty Park to announce his candidacy, the same place Ronald Reagan chose to launch his campaign as the nominee of the Republican party in September 1980. His Casper Milquetoast announcemant speech at Liberty Park simply can't compare Reagan's and is the same recipe for defeat John McCain gave us. And it's no coincidence, John Weaver Huntsman's top political advisor is a former McCain campaign team member. Soon you will see the NY Times declaring Huntsman the second coming. A drumbeat from the rest of the legacy...

Washington (CNN) - In an interview after his presidential announcement Tuesday, former Utah governor and ambassador to China Jon Huntsman tried to downplay a letter he wrote to President Barack Obama in August 2009 calling him a "remarkable leader." Huntsman told Fox News that he was only alluding to the fact that the president would appoint a Republican to "a position as important and sensitive as the U.S. ambassadorship to China."

[...] The former Utah Republican governor and Obama ambassador to China is the answer to an election-year problem that doesn't exist. The quadrennial "problem," in the minds of Beltway GOP strategists and liberal media chin-pullers, is that the Republican Party isn't moderate, civil, self-critical or inclusive enough. Huntsman is the latest no-labels flavor of the month, a straw man of the same people who have spent the past year smearing entitlement reformers as senior citizen-killers, budget hawks as Hitler's spawn, border-security activists as racists, and leading GOP women as sluts, nuts and bimbos. Just like the failed 2008 GOP contender...

Every detail of Jon Huntsman’s long-awaited campaign launch was meticulously planned, except of course for one minor detail: the misspelling of the candidate’s name. Members of the media were handed a press pass that read “John Huntsman for President"  -- adding an unnecessary H in the candidate's first name.

"Sources confirm to Fox News that former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman will officially declare candidacy for GOP presidential nomination on June 21 next week, at Liberty Park in NJ

Two enormous stories are waiting for the MSM when it recovers from the Weiner implosion. One concerns domestic policy and the other foreign. "Fast and Furious" is the name given to a Department of Justice/Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms investigation into gun running into Mexico. The Feds decided to try and tag and follow heavy weaponry into Mexico with the idea of charting the smugglers' map. What happened to the operation is the subject of an investigation by Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight and Governmental Affairs Committee. Appearing on my show Tuesday, Issa had this about the...

With Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels out of the race, is a Huntsman boomlet brewing? There is no shortage of voices willing to say so, including Jon Huntsman. "I think the opening is to our advantage," the former Utah governor told Politico. "How many reform-minded governors are there left who are going to take a very fiscally conservative approach to problem-solving?" Daniels had a strong appeal to fiscal conservatives, but his "truce talk" added a special appeal to that subset of fiscal conservatives actively motivated to stick it to social conservatives. Many mavericky McCain campaign aides are now drifting off in...

Washington (CNN) - After wrapping up a five day swing through the first in the nation primary state of New Hampshire, Jon Huntsman heads to Maine Monday afternoon to meet with former President George H.W. Bush. Huntsman is expected to have lunch with former President Bush and first lady Barbara Bush at their compound Kennebunkport. The former Utah governor and probable 2012 GOP White House hopeful has something in common with the former president: Both served as U.S. ambassadors to China. Huntsman's announcement earlier this year that he was stepping down from his post in Beijing to return to the...

Jon Huntsman gave a relatively brief interview to Time, but it’s likely to create longer term problems for his rumored presidential run in the GOP. Huntsman says he opposes cap-and-trade proposals because “this isn’t the moment,” but he buys the climate change argument because “90% of the scientists” say it’s happening. If 90% of oncologists identified a carcinogen, Huntsman says, he’d believe them too (via Taegan Goddard): You also believe in climate change, right?This is an issue that ought to be answered by the scientific community; I’m not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say...

He’s a centristy maverick with foreign policy chops — and you know how well those types do against Barack Obama in national elections. Top Democrats in and outside the White House, speaking on background so they could be more candid, suggest that former US Ambassador to China and Utah Governor Jon Huntsman would be the GOP candidate President Obama would least like to face in 2012 — but they think he can’t win the nomination.The very qualities that make Huntsman formidable in November 2012 — his centrism and bipartisanship — will work against him in Iowa and South Carolina, Democrats...

Last weekend, my dinner partner, a self-described "Theodore Roosevelt Republican, very disturbed and discouraged by the Tea Party movement," detailed for me the reasons Jon Huntsman Jr. could not win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. "He is intelligent, attractive, has proven leadership credentials as a businessman and former governor, and would be best suited to take on Obama in a general election. So, of course, our party won't nominate him." Joking aside, rumors about the current U.S. ambassador to China (he is resigning that post effective April 31) and his future plans have the Washington chattering class buzzing. The entity...

“Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” – Southern Baptist preacher (and presidential candidate) Mike Huckabee, 2007 ——- It looks increasingly likely that there will be two serious Mormon candidates (Mitt Romney and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, Jr.) running for president this year. One hopes that they will do a better job handling the religion issue than Mitt did in 2008. If past campaigns with LDS candidates are any guide, we can expect to see theological cheap shots like Mike Huckabee’s being taken by other campaigns, political pundits, and journalists. It is unlikely that substantive answers...

LAYTON -- A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can become president of the United States of America, says Karl Rove, former senior adviser to President George W. Bush. "Absolutely," said Rove, who was in Layton on Thursday night for a stop-over to address a room full of fellow Republicans at the Davis Conference Center. While he was at it, Rove, who served as the keynote speaker for the Davis County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner, autographed copies of his book. More than 400 people attended the event at a cost of $50 per person, which...

Put Jon Huntsman Jr., the U.S. ambassador to China and former governor of Utah, on the shortlist of potentially strong GOP candidates for president or vice president in 2012. It is time for the Great Mentioner in American politics to mention Huntsman as a major rising star with a great political future. He is the kind of political leader most Americans seek, long on experience and achievement and far removed from the vicious attack politics most voters abhor. As the president speaks tonight, the state of the union is simple. Americans want more jobs in an economy that lifts all...

Jon Huntsman, the U.S. Ambassador to China and a former Republican Governor of Utah, has hinted he might run for President, Newsweek reported on Saturday. President Obama convinced Huntsman to resign his post as Utah Governor in 2009 to become the ambassador to China. At the time, there was some speculation that Huntsman, a moderate, could challenge Obama in the 2012 presidential race. David Plouffe, Obama's chief campaign manager in 2008, had even said Huntsman was the only candidate who made him "a wee bit queasy" in the 2012 election. According to The Huffington Post, "when Obama selected Huntsman for...

If this proves to be the moment when the march toward ever-greater globalization and trade ends or slows significantly, look not only to tariffs or buy-American rules or street protests as the causes. Look also to changes now being contemplated in rules for global finance. The collapse of world trade was more abrupt than friends or foes of globalization imagined possible. The World Trade Organization says the volume of trade -- an estimate adjusted to remove effects of price and currency changes -- will fall 9% this year, the most severe contraction since World War II.

SALT LAKE CITY - (ABC 4 News) - There is one republican presidential candidate that President Barack Obama's campaign manager fears the most in 2012...and his name is Jon Huntsman Jr. This week for Governor Huntsman, good things are coming in threes. Not just the fear from the Obama campaign, but also an important phone call and a weekend spent testing the waters in a key primary state. While no republican presidential candidate yet makes Obama's team "shake in {their} shoes...," President Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, now says Governor Jon Huntsman makes him, a "wee bit queasy...I think he's...

SALT LAKE CITY - (ABC 4 News) - There is one republican presidential candidate that President Barack Obama's campaign manager fears the most in 2012...and his name is Jon Huntsman Jr. This week for Governor Huntsman, good things are coming in threes. Not just the fear from the Obama campaign, but also an important phone call and a weekend spent testing the waters in a key primary state.

(snip) ICYMI...2012 Like It's Today: Regular Fix readers know that we are keeping an eye on Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) -- perhaps the most popular politician in the country at the moment and someone with clear ambitions for national office. So, when Huntsman declared recently that he supports civil unions for same-sex couples our ears perked up. The move puts Huntsman on the progressive end of the Republican party, which, in recent years, has emphasized its opposition to gay marriage and civil unions for same-sex couples. Polling done by Dan Jones & Associates shows mixed results on how Huntsman's...

Republican governors, battling climate change in their states and fed up with the GOP’s inability to organize in Washington, are urging their congressional colleagues to start the new Congress with unprecedented dedication to addressing global warming. “It’s been enormously frustrating,” said Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican who recently signed up his state for the Western Climate Initiative, a bloc of states committed to reducing greenhouse gases 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. “We would not need the Western Climate Initiative if it were not for the foot-dragging nature of Congress,” Huntsman said. “If Republicans had identified this problem...