Dick Morris said Huntsman was the biggest loser in the last debate because he no showed on a pretense of going to New Hampshire to deal with the primary timetable issue. Morris called it naked pandering.
So anyone able here to explain why Huntsman no showed? Why skip a major event that primary voters will be watching, and more voters will be reading about the next day on in the media roundup?
Are his advisers in this morons or geniuses?
The accusation of “pandering” doesn’t make a lot of sense. If Huntsman is going to do well in any primary state (which admittedly isn’t very likely), it would be Nevada as he was a popular governor of a neighboring state. Romney has the same advantage in NH, and its unlikely that any amount of pandering will help Huntsman there. The smart move would be to suck up to Nevada and support their pushing their primary up and hope an early win there gives him momentum.
In a wider sense, I don’t really understand what Huntsman is doing. He’s not going to win the GOP nomination in 2012. Some people speculate he’s setting up for a 2016 race, but I don’t think that makes much sense either. The GOP often draws on its second or third place finishers from the last election, but Huntsman will be lucky to finish fourth. I don’t think “couldn’t even break the top four last time” is going to be a particularly effective rallying cry in 2016.
Plus the most likely GOP candidate is Romney, and if he looses, it seems pretty unlikely the 2016 GOP will turn to another moderate mormon governor next time around. So he’s not going to be his party’s nominee in 2016 either.
Honestly, the whole thing just seems like a rich-kids vanity project. He’s got money to burn (he’s wealthier then Romney), and he’s burning it pretending to run for President. He stuck up for NH’s primary date because he doesn’t really care about its effects on his election chances.
It seemed to me that he was pandering to the party rather than NH. Perhaps this is his way of appealing to the Republican establishment as a team player. Maybe he’s angling for a cabinet position if Romney’s elected.
Huntsman’s plan is contingent on one of the extremists getting the nomination this year and then losing badly. If that happens, then he’s in excellent shape for a run and even win in 2016. Yeah, the odds are still against him, but that’s still a heck of a lot more plausible path to the Presidency than the vast majority of Americans, or even the vast majority of high-level politicians, can hope for.
But wouldn’t Romney be better suited to play the moderate family values guy in 2016?
Romney has been campaigning continuously since about 2007. If he doesn’t win this time, he’s done. I don’t see Huntsman becomes a favorite for 2016 under any circumstance short of, I don’t know, the religious right being raptured away.
I think at this point Republican debates are not major events, being on more often than many network series, and having a longer run than The Playboy Club. In any case, Huntsman probably got more coverage from not showing up than he would if he had been there.
Huntsman is a far more consistent and stronger pro-lifer than Romney ever was/