If Christie is tarnished, does that impact the GOP's moderation efforts?

[Measure_for_Measure]

@adaher

Huckabee also occupies some moderate space: while he’s a social conservative, he’s moderate on economic issues. John Huntsman could try again, although I’m not really sure I’d characterize him as a moderate. He’s actually Tea Partyish on most issues other than the environment, but his moderate temperament and lack of partisanship make him appear to be more moderate than he is.

Huntsman isn’t moderate at all: he is highly conservative. His problem is that he is way too neurotypical for the Republican primary electorate. I quote myself:

@Measure_for_Measure

[Huntsman] got maybe 2 weeks of coverage. After that he tweeted items that were not so much liberal as sane. And that’s what did him in: he was far too neurotypical for the Republican electorate. It has nothing to do with the media and everything to do with the base.

Here are his tweets: To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/08/19/gop-candidate-jon-huntsman-makes-waves-with-tweet-on-evolution-and-climate-change/ And over in South Carolina, he wouldn’t pander to the loons: One of the state’s Tea Party leaders, Chris Lawton, asks what he knows about China’s setting up “secret free-trade zones” in the American West. Huntsman politely says he hasn’t heard anything about that and moves along. There’s nothing moderate about Huntsman. It’s just that he is neither a lunatic, nor does he try to act like one. And that is electoral poison in a Republican primary.

You can accept the scientific consensus on global warming. You can accept evolution. But both at the same time? That’s a bridge too far for the Republican electorate. Add to this his foreign policy credentials such as an Ambassadorship to China under Obama combined with fluency in Chinese and his candidacy is basically hopeless.