Huntsman and the Prom Queen

A pretty dumb moment from Jon Huntsman. Yesterday, Huntsman claimed that the media only paid attention to Michele Bachmann because she was pretty.

In a long story running in this week's New York, Huntsman -- who recently abandoned his lackluster Mr. Nice Guy campaign in favor of taking direct swipes at his opponents -- suggested Bachmann, the only woman officially running for president, gets the attention she gets in part because she's good-looking. "She makes for good copy--and good photography," Huntsman told New York's John Heilemann. The quote came in the context of talk about Bachmann being "more an object of media fascination than a plausible nominee," as Heilemann put it.

Actually, I follow commentary on Bachmann's campaign fairly closely and there's none of the "librarian porn" fascination surrounding Bachmann that was the case with Sarah Palin. Actually, this is the first discussion I've seen of her standard-issue, politician look. I remember somebody commenting that politicians all look like class presidents or prom queens and Bachmann looks like she could have been queen at a home schooling prom.

But who besides Jon Huntsman, who really cares?

The main things about Bachmann's candidacy is that she has a constituency in the religious right and Tea Party factions, works very hard, has a potential path to the Republican nomination, and would lose the general election to Obama by about 25 points.

But why exactly is Jon Huntsman running?

About all I can see is that he has a career-killing resume as a moderate Republican, good hair, and an interesting story about growing up as a rock n' roll Mormon.

Not exactly presidential material there.

Jon Huntsman Throws His Snowball into the Deep Pit

In one of the most insignificant presidential campaign announcements of 2011, Jon Huntsman has announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination.

The media gives Huntsman a lot of play because he's a "different kind of Republican" who has moderate views on social issues and served with Barack Obama as ambassador to China.

But Huntsman is almost as bad a no-hoper as you can get.

First, Huntsman doesn't have much name recognition among Republican voters. Of course, that's not necessarily fatal. But the easiest ways to pump up name recognition for an ambitious GOP politician are to drop about $100 million into advertising or make firebrand pronouncements about how Barack Obama is destroying the country because he isn't a real American. Huntsman comes from a wealthy and prominent Mormon family, but doesn't seem to have the ability to drop 50 or 100 mill like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. Likwise, he just came off a sting as Obama's ambassador to China. So, he can't make himself into Obama's "enemy from hell" either. Making things worse, Huntsman has no juice with the religious right, no cache with foreign policy neo-cons, and very little connection with the Republican religious establishment.

So, what is Jon Huntsman's constituency?

At first glance, it looks like Huntsman is going to compete for Mitt Romney votes. I should be clear that Huntsman's not going to compete with Mitt Romney for Romney votes. Huntsman has absolutely no chance of competing with Romney at this point. Instead, Huntsman is going to compete with Tim Pawlenty for the "I agree with Romney, but would never vote for Romney" vote.

That's the only competition Tim Pawlenty is going to win all year.

Huntsman Agonistes

Matt Bai of the New York Times claims that the Jon Huntsman candidacy for the Republican nomination should be taken seriously and that he has Republican insiders who will stake their careers on Huntsman's chances.

A few deeply knowledgeable Republicans I talked to (if I told you who they were, they wouldn’t talk to me anymore) gave him something like a 1 in 5 chance of getting the nomination. Their view is that Mr. Huntsman, who is regarded as a moderate on issues like immigration and climate change, isn’t nearly as likely a choice as Mr. Romney, but he’s not substantially less likely than, say, Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota.

Ok, claiming that Huntsman has as good a chance as no-hoper Tim Pawlenty is not exactly taking a big leap.

But Huntsman doesn't have a chance at all.

What Huntsman wants to be is the Barack Obama of Republican moderates--someone who can appeal to a broad coalition of Wall Street guys, Main Street Republican businessmen, and traditional conservatives who don't like too much progress but aren't interested in re-enacting either the Boston Tea Party or the attack on Fort Sumter.

But Mitt Romney pretty much has those constituencies sewn up. That leaves Huntsman and Pawlenty fighting over the scraps of Republican voters who think like Romney but don't want to vote for Romney.

That's not a very big group.

If Jon Huntsman has a purpose in running for president at all in 2012, it's to put himself in position to be a consensus elite candidate in 2016.

But he doesn't have any chance of accomplishing that either.

I'm Thinking About Running for the Republican Nomination

HuffPost is leading with a teaser quote from China Ambassador Jon Huntsman about running for president in 2012.

Now, it appears, the ambassador is ready to make some noise of his own. Sitting in the echo-y living room of his new Washington home, Huntsman, a tall, lean man with silver hair and impeccable posture, pauses only briefly when faced with the question of presidential aspirations. "You know, I'm really focused on what we're doing in our current position," he says. "But we won't do this forever, and I think we may have one final run left in our bones." Asked whether he is prepared to rule out a run in 2012 (since it would require him to campaign against his current boss), he declines to comment.

The new media rule about prospective presidential candidates is that a prominent politician is always interested in running if he or she is unwilling to be Shermanesque in their refusal to run. Of course, Huntsman is not being Shermanesque ("if nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve"), but he doesn't seem particularly interested in mounting a 2012 presidential campaign either.

And why would Huntsman run. The former Republican governor of Utah is the kind of "big tent Republican" who got beaten by Tea Party candidates in Republican primaries. Huntsman wouldn't have any more of a chance to win the Republican nomination than I would.

In fact, if Jon Huntsman declares his candidacy, I'll also announce that I'm running for the Republican nomination for President.

If Huntsman runs, I run.

And let's face it! I would make a much better president than any actual Republican.