John Cassidy, writing in the New Yorker magazine:

With Romney in the race and leading it, what was the point of Huntsman?

Despite picking up plenty more favorable articles as he went along, Huntsman never provided a convincing answer to this question. He retained his status as the mainstream media’s Jesus candidate whilst demonstrating he wasn’t up to the job. In the words of Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, who endorsed Huntsman, to Beth Rainard, of the National Journal: “There was no edge to his message, no contrast with other candidates, and he was way too subtle. I appreciated his civility a lot, but I  concluded that fundamentally, he’s a diplomat and not a politician.”

Read more, click anywhere around here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/20 12/01/good-riddance-to-jon-huntsman.html#ixzz1jf0nMu4H
 

TerryReport comment: perhaps he just couldn’t make the transition from diplomat to candidate quickly enough. Maybe Huntsmann just didn’t understand how rough, mean, angry and disgusting national politics in America has become.

Jon Huntsmann is dropping out of the Republican nomination race. No big surprise. He never really got started, except for his third place finish in New Hampshire.

The end of Huntsmann points out the need for a new, third party in America. There is no more moderate/right Republican party. That’s dead, buried, gone. The idea of a moderate/liberal Republican seems as dated as the Model T Ford. The Republicans these days are fighting with each other over who is more radically to the right and it is a rather ugly battle that threatens to break up their party.

Huntsmann wanted to be the good guy in the middle of snarling dogs, but this is the year for snarling dogs, so he stuck out like a dozen roses thrown into a sewer. Make no mistake, Huntsmann is not a true moderate, but he looks like one when compared to the rest of the pack. His ideas represented nothing in the way of great creativity toward solving America’s problems, but he was the one candidate who did not sound droningly repetitive when discussing the issues. He got a strong right hook to the nose of Romney when he said, “This kind of attitude is what is wrong with America...” during one of the two       pre-New Hampshire debates.

In another time, in another era, Huntsmann’s low key, decent and fairly humble approach might have worked. Up against Perry, Gingrich and Santorum, he was like a bird without wings. The main reason he is dropping out now is money: he doesn’t have any. The other reason is that South Carolina is an old southern state that leans so far to the right their noses touch the ground. In South Carolina, the resentments and ideas born of the Civil War era are not history, they aren’t even in the past. Huntsmann had no chance. He seemed far too nice, a kind of Republican lite. Angry at themselves for letting Obama get into office, the rightest wing of the Republlican party now senses an opportunity to shutdown the Democrats program of a modest social safety net once and for all, leaving us all at the tender mercies of corporate power operating rogue like under the shinning banner of free markets.                     Doug Terry, 1.16.12

MORE ON HUNTSMANN? Below are links to LA Times stories on the campaign effort of the former Utah governor.

 Mitt Romney courts South Carolina veterans, goes after Obama Huntsman's 'ticket to ride' lands him in South Carolina In South Carolina, a prolonged pitch from Jon Huntsman

John Cassidy, writing the New Yorker, says Huntsmann could have positioned himself as a kind of Teddy Roosevelt Republican, tacking away from the far right trends of the moment:

“...that, surely, would have been a more favorable legacy both for him and for other Republican pragmatists who believe the  party, with its embrace of voodoo economics, retrogressive social values, and pseudo-science,  is on a path to self-destruction.

Read more, click anywhere after this:  http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2 012/01/good-riddance-to-jon-huntsman.html#ixzz1jf6LQhuI
 

  Photography from Guatemala, Maryland, Italy and elsewhere by Doug Terry

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