Free Republic

“The best ideas are going to come out of the states,” said Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman, speaking to a group of bloggers, online journalists and digital strategists at the Heritage Foundation. Huntsman, who has seen an uptick in interest in his candidacy since the last two Republican debates that showcased his foreign policy strengths, used the event to draw on his experience as Utah’s governor as a way to reinforce his domestic bonafides. Huntsman served as Utah’s governor from 2004 until 2009, when he was appointed by President Barack Obama to be U.S. ambassador to China. In a wide-ranging...

GOP Presidential Candidate Jon Huntsman dismissed Donald Trump and the debate the real estate mogul and reality TV star will be moderating, and told Larry Kudlow he’s the only consistent conservative in the race. The former Utah Governor and former ambassador to China likened the Newsmax-sponsored presidential debate to a reality show, and said he would not be participating. “There’s some dignity associated with a run for the highest office in the land, and it shouldn’t be trivialized and it shouldn’t be dumbed down,” he said. “If Don Trump cares about our nation’s future, he should have been a candidate...

When asked about the possibility of an independent bid for the White House, real estate mogul Donald Trump said, "If the economy continues to be bad and if the Republicans choose the wrong person, I would do it." Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) refused to rule out a third-party run for president if he did not get the Republican nomination he's currently pursuing. Former New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman's Americans Elect is encouraging current GOP contender Jon Huntsman to run as a third party candidate since it's doubtful he would be the Republicans' choice (Mr. Huntsman has refused to rule...

Tax cutter. Those lifetime lessons have made a big impact. Huntsman, like Thatcher, seems to be a conservative of intuition derived from personal experience. Huntsman a conservative? As governor, he massively cut income and sales taxes — instituting a 5 percent flat income tax — while expanding the state’s “rainy day” reserve fund. His approach to healthcare reform relied on markets rather than mandates. As the Club for Growth describes it, “Utah’s main health reform contained no individual mandate, no employer mandate, and has very limited regulatory authority. … It empowers individuals to take ownership of their own health insurance...

Former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told ABC News' “This Week” that he expects to soon supplant surging rival Newt Gingrich and become the Republican favorite. “So if you look at all of these little boomlets, they last about four to six weeks. Newt is in about week three,” Santorum said. “So we feel pretty good that, you know, come the middle of December and toward the end of December, as candidates are looking for a candidate they can trust, someone that is authentic, someone who knows what they believe in and why they believe it, and...

(snip) Jon Huntsman inexplicably chose to debut as the Republican for people who rather dislike Republicans, but his program is the most conservative. He endorses Paul Ryan’s budget and entitlement reforms. (Gingrich denounced Ryan’s Medicare reform as “right-wing social engineering.”) Huntsman would privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Gingrich’s benefactor). Huntsman would end double taxation on investment by eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends. (Romney would eliminate them only for people earning less than $200,000, who currently pay just 9.3 percent of them.) Huntsman’s thorough opposition to corporate welfare includes farm subsidies. (Romney has justified them as national security...

We talk to a lot of people here who are keenly interested in politics, both in the comments, on other blogs and on Twitter. And if there’s one common complaint that we hear time after time it’s, “You know what we really need? More debates.” Well, put your minds at ease. Not only will we finally get another debate added to the schedule, but we can finally get away from the horrible moderation of all these journalists and turn the controls over to the one person everyone wants to hear from. The Donald. It’s officially a reality television Republican primary...

MERRIMACK, N.H. — Jon Huntsman has staked his presidential bid on doing well in New Hampshire. With few exceptions, the former two-term governor of Utah has campaigned exclusively in the Granite State. Two months ago, he moved his national campaign headquarters to Manchester, and he’s beginning to make some inroads there. Huntsman explained his strategy this way: He wants to avoid the meteoric rises and flameouts of Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain. “I don’t want 15 minutes of fame,” Huntsman told reporters at the Merrimack Town Hall. “I want a sustained rise that isn’t fickle and isn’t short-lived,...

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is skipping next week's presidential primary debate in Iowa. ABC is to televise the event nationally. Huntsman on Friday says he'll instead have a town hall-style meeting on Dec. 10 in New Hampshire, a state that is central to his political strategy. Huntsman has written-off Iowa and has spent neither time nor money there. Huntsman also has accepted an invitation to do a one-on-one debate with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in New Hampshire. The two will meet in Windham for a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate with tea party activists on Dec. 12. Gingrich has invited each...

Last May, when Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was pondering a White House bid, Jason Sorens of the University of Buffalo wrote a commentary that went largely unnoticed. Wanting to "take a look at Jon Huntsman," who has been "widely viewed as a 'moderate' Republican, but whose" policies "stake out a position that may be more libertarian than Daniels'," Sorens concluded that after former Gov. Gary Johnson and Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Huntsman offered the most libertarian credentials — besting even Daniels. Sorens's views deserve recognition in New Hampshire, a generally conservative state with decisively libertarian leanings, as our first-in-the-nation presidential...

There certainly appears to be a blood-feud between Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney. Huntsman continues his attacks focused almost exclusively on Romney with this new ad that takes from Romney’s recent interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier in which Romney claimed Baier’s list of past “flip-flops” was “just not accurate.” The web ad then goes on to show clips of Romney from the past on that list of issues juxtaposed with his current views. This ad makes you think Huntsman’s Campaign is far more about keeping Mitt Romney from being President than it is about Jon Huntsman wanting to be...

This week we also learned more about the underhanded and undemocratic ways in which the Federal Reserve saved big banks last time around. (You should read Ron Suskind’s book, “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President.” To understand Mr. Geithner’s philosophy of unconditional bailouts, remember that he was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before becoming Treasury secretary.) Is there really no alternative to pouring good money after bad? (snip) The goal is simple, as Mr. Huntsman said in his recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece: make the banks small enough and simple...

What do you call a family-oriented former governor who supported and signed every pro-life bill sent his way, passed the largest tax cut in his state’s history, enacted the most expansive school voucher program in the nation and presided over what was cited as one of the most business-friendly states? Many Republicans, and much of the media, call this a “moderate.” That is how they are labeling former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who officially entered the GOP presidential fray on Tuesday. Whenever Huntsman’s name is mentioned, it is usually accompanied by that most unhelpful of primary season adjectives. But while...

HANOVER, NH—Jon Huntsman walked out of the rear door of a Dartmouth auditorium. His head swiveled as he looked for the black SUV that will take him to his next stop. He had just given a speech emphasizing his claim that the future of America will not be decided on a battlefield in remotest Afghanistan but along the trade routes of the Pacific. The applause had barely died down in the hall as Huntsman exited into the quiet streets of Hanover. He took one second to sigh. He had just launched “Phase Two” of his campaign, and it was a...

With a brand new proposal, Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is the only GOP 2012er to have moved beyond “repeal Dodd Frank” (which sounds like a return-to-the-status-quo) and fashioned a serious and comprehensive — and bold — financial reform plan. He’s for repealing Dodd Frank, of course, but also a) reducing bank leverage by axing the deduction for interest payments and b) shutting down Fannie and Freddie. But eliminating “too big to fail” is really the core of what he’s trying to do. As Team Huntsman correctly notes, the six largest U.S. financial institutions are significantly bigger than they were...

Newt Gingrich has taken the lead in PPP's national polling. He's at 28% to 25% for Herman Cain and 18% for Mitt Romney. The rest of the Republican field is increasingly looking like a bunch of also rans: Rick Perry is at 6%, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum each at 1%.

Fresh off their spoof of a Herman Cain campaign video, GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman's daughters aren't finished yet. Appearing on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday, three of Huntsman's daughters who participated in the parody said they might have a sequel in the works and joked that they were the campaign's "secret weapon." "We're always up to something," said Abby Huntsman, daughter of the former Utah governor. "Something might be coming. You'll have to tune in," her sister Liddy Huntsman added. Liddy also took credit for the concept. "I had been receiving e-mails and I had seen the Herman...

It just gets weirder and weirder. Here is video of a new Jon Huntsman ad that features his daughters spoofing Herman Cain’s recent bizarre “smoking ad” that featured his Chief of Staff smoking a cigarette. I kid you not! In this ad, Huntsman’s daughters wear fake mustaches as they mimic the content of Cain’s ad. But they close by blowing soap bubbles instead of smoking a cigarette. How this is supposed to make you want to vote for Jon Huntsman I’ll never know. . . .

Huntsman's a jerk, but any attack on MItt is welcome. Maybe they'll chew each other up.

A closer look at the former Utah governor might surprise some conservatives.With Herman Cain’s campaign suffering serious headwinds in recent days, voters of the recalcitrant “not-Romney” bloc may soon begin to shift. And while no Republican presidential contenders are without their foibles, there is at least one candidate who has not received fair consideration from the conservative electorate or media. Despite scuttlebutt to the contrary, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is not a Democrat in disguise, but was in fact a relatively ambitious conservative governor. And if he is “moderate,” he is not appreciably more moderate than other leading candidates...