Huntsman at the Aug. 11 Iowa debate (photo via politifact.com)
The Times reports today that the EPA has become the favorite punching-bag of the Republican presidential field. This is not exactly news, considering raising questions about theories as basic as evolution is par for the course among conservatives, but what is unusual is the degree to which supposedly “moderate” candidates are beginning to echo hard-liners like Rick Perry, who said Wednesday that climate change “has not been proven and from my perspective is more and more being put into question.” John M. Broder of the Times writes that Jon Huntsman “thinks most new environmental regulations should be shelved until the economy improves.” Huntsman, doing the Romney two-step away from his previous conservation-minded incarnation as governor of Utah, is increasingly adopting the rhetoric of the right.
Given that Michelle Bachmann just won the Iowa Straw Poll, with fellow extremist Ron Paul not far behind, it may come as no surprise that the entire Republican field – and, to be honest, the political spectrum in general – has shifted to the right. But Huntsman puzzles me. It’s clear he can never win the nomination, as he’s basically an apostate as far as the Tea Party is concerned, yet he tacks to the right and abandons whatever environmental credentials he may have in order to appeal to the GOP. Any number of clichés apply here: cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, penny-wise but pound-poor. Huntsman has inserted himself into a lose-lose situation that trades a potential political future for a doomed political present. In spite of his efforts to woo the conservative wing of his party, he retains enough integrity not to bend on the issues on which evangelicals and deficit hawks demand orthodoxy. In his first debate, Huntsman reiterated his support for civil unions, a stance which will not poll well among Michele Bachmann’s home-schooling, evolution-denying enthusiasts. Though he toed the radical party line by joining his fellow debaters in rejecting a hypothetical budget deal that would favor spending cuts over increased revenues by a 10-to-1 ratio, he was the lone candidate to endorse, albeit grudgingly, the agreement to raise the debt ceiling. With positions like these, Huntsman is kidding himself if he thinks there’s the slightest chance that he’ll be facing President Obama in 2012.
Even if he did tack dramatically to the right, a la Mitt Romney, he would be dogged by the same accusations of flip-flopping inconsistency that have haunted the former governor of Massachussetts. As governors, neither man had the luxury of burnishing their conservative credentials by, say, lodging protest votes against raising the debt ceiling while simultaneously relying on more moderate members of their party to avoid national default (I’m talking to you, Michelle Bachmann). Guided by the realpolitik necessary to run an entire state, Huntsman talked up conservation and Romney committed the inexpungible sin of instituting a universal health care system that Republicans view as the precursor to “ObamaCare.” Neither Romney nor Huntsman can tout the sort of neoconservative gubernatorial record that Rick Perry of Texas, who attributes his state’s housing- and oil-fueled boom to his pro-business, small-government leadership, can brag about. (Texas, it should be mentioned, has the highest percentage of uninsured children in the U.S. You’d think Massachussetts would make an edifying comparison, but there’s that RomneyCare albatross again.)
At any rate, though Huntsman is trying valiantly to convince the unconvincible that he wouldn’t be the presidential equivalent of former Supreme Court Justice David Souter, the message doesn’t seem to be taking. Not only is he no closer to being nominated, but he has also diminished himself in the eyes of moderates and common-sense conservatives who might otherwise regard him as the sort of rational, cool-headed Republican that this country is sorely lacking. Huntsman might have made a good candidate in 2008, when his polished reserve would have worked as an interesting parallel to Obama’s own scholarly attitude, but 2012 is not 2008 – or 2010, for that matter. In the two years following Obama’s election, the rise of the Tea Party has radically altered the face of the Republican party. It isn’t just that there are more Congresspeople eager to shrink government until Grover Norquist can drag it into the infamous bathtub; it’s that, to paraphrase the famous Time headline, “we are all Tea Partiers now.” Even formerly sober fiscal conservatives have been obliged to nod robotically as Paul Ryan calls for the end of Medicare. John Boehner walked away from a “grand bargain” that would have reduced the deficit by $4 trillion over ten years because he could not ask House Republicans to raise taxes by a red cent. There is simply no place in the GOP of day for a candidate like Jon Huntsman.
That brings me to the question of why Huntsman has chosen to run in 2012 at all. When Obama appointed Huntsman ambassador to China, the new president assumed he had taken a potential opponent out of the running. It’s too soon, however, to know if Obama’s assumption was wrong. Huntsman’s return to politics is shadowed by his service to a Democratic president, and while his conviction that “if I’m asked by my President to serve, I’ll stand up and do it,” is admirable, the fact remains that, in the eyes of Republican caucus-goers, he is still yoked to the big-government, socialist-conspiracy policies of the Obama administration. Why run now, when the ink is barely dry on Huntsman’s last government paycheck? The wiser tactic would be to preserve his bipartisan bona fides, wait out the Tea Party mania, and hope the atmosphere in 2016 is less nutty. Huntsman is intelligent and electable, but perhaps not in the current environment. To do backflips to win over the right wing of the GOP is extremely short-sighted. Second acts are possible – again, see Mitt Romney – but not common. Huntsman may not get another whack at the nomination, especially if he turns in an embarrassingly dismal performance in this round. Romney is indeed making his second push for the nomination, but he was not blown out of the water by John McCain in 2008. It was briefly conceivable, after a couple early victories, that Romney would emerge as the Republican pick. His status as 2012’s putative front-runner relies on the fact that he made a strong showing four years ago. Huntsman, who is polling in the single-digits and who struggled to distinguish himself amid the Pawlenty-Bachmann and Paul-Santorum brawls of the first debate, may not come out of this election cycle with such solid credentials. My (unsolicited) advice to Huntsman: get out, stay out, and find a way to keep your face in the public eye until 2016. It’s possible that Huntsman is worried that four years is a long time for a governor without star status to be out of the spotlight, and that concern is legitimate. Scott Walker, the Wisconsin union-buster, and Chris Christie, who enjoys lobbing bombs at New Jersey teachers, may have enough of a national reputation to make a comeback after a couple years in the wilderness, but it’s not clear that Jon Huntsman will leave a similar impression. He may feel that 2012 is the only chance he’ll get. Politics, however, is more than the presidency; serving on one of the myriad commissions or panels that breed like rabbits in Washington would be one way to stay relevant. If he returned to Huntsman Corp, he could be an outspoken advocate for free trade, or fashion himself as a private-sector emissary to the government in the mold of Jeffrey Immelt or Henry Paulson. When Warren Buffett and George Soros opine on the economy, their remarks make the news, and while Huntsman is not exactly on Buffett’s level, he could present himself as a critic and potential reformer of the White House’s economic policies.
Even in a calmer election cycle, one in which candidates aren’t threatening the head of the Federal Reserve with bodily harm (Rick Perry) or promising to padlock the doors of the EPA (Michelle Bachmann), Huntsman would not be the perfect candidate. His coolness can translate as condescension, and after Obama, aloofness may be the last quality Americans are looking for in a president. There is also, of course, the Mormon “problem,” which, depending on the success of Mitt Romney, may or may not be an actual problem for the evangelicals and other conservative Christians that make up the Republican base. But Huntsman is a worthy – and sane – enough candidate that it is disheartening to watch him squander his political future for a couple minutes on stage with Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. The 2016 has the potential to be Huntsman’s sweet spot, but with the decisions he’s making in 2012, we may never get the chance to find out.
. . . So Well Read. . . 