Again, Huntsman ran a STUPID campaign. An unforgivably STUPID campaign. If he prefers to blame his idiocy on the voters, rather than himself, that’s HIS problem.
Every smart politician in both parties knows, and has known for a long time: If you want to be President, you have to nail down the party faithful FIRST, in order to win the nomination. THEN, and only then, you move to the middle as quickly as possible.
Bill Clinton knew the drill- he appealed to the traditional liberal wing of the Democratic Party while seeking the nomination. Only AFTER he had the liberals won over did he strike conservative poses by attacking Sistah Souljah.
Now, let’s look at how Jon Huntsman went about seeking the Presidency. Huntsman established an admirably conservative record as governor of Utah. His main opponent, Mitt Romney, was a lifelong liberal whom conservatives didn’t trust, and WANTED To abandon if they were given a decent alternative.
So, given how EASY it would have been to run to Romney’s right, what did Huntsman do? He ran to Romney’s LEFT!!!
He went out of his way to insult and alienate the conservative voters he needed, in order to win the primaries, and chose to be The Liberal Democrats’ Favorite Conservative. When he should have been trying to win over Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, he was kissing up to Michael Moore and Steven Cole-burt.
So… saying that you believe in science (Darwin, Climate Science) means you are running on Romney’s left?
astorian is big on assertions but can’t seem to substantiate his arguments in this thread. And OBTW, Clinton put his free trade credentials forward during the 1992 Democratic primaries. He was considered a governor of a conservative state: in fact his whole schtick was that he was a “New Democrat”. Only hysterics and loons believed Clinton to be some fire breathing liberal. There’s no evidence for that supposition, except within their fevered imaginations.
Huntsman’s was angling for 2016 anyway. He premised his campaign on an experiment: are there any neuro-typicals left in the Republican base? The answer is, “Yes, but they are electorally insignificant, rounding error really.”
You, on the other hand, don’t know squat about the GOP, and haven’t “substantiated” a thing yourself.
But tell you what- if a liberal governor ever seeks the Democratic nomination, and starts by appearing on Rush Limbaugh’s show and insulting gays and abortion rights supporters, I’ll be sure to call HIM stupid, too.
You have displayed zero examples in this thread, so I tentatively conclude that your knowledge is purely intuitive and possibly impressionistic, that is to say unreliable.
OTOH, I have referred to Huntsman’s well publicized twitter messages, as well as eyewitness testimony when he was running for the Presidency. Those examples propped my case - they substantiated it.
What Mosier said. I’m taking off on a trip, btw, so I’ll hand the baton to other posters.
Yeah, Clinton and Gore presented themselves as “New Democrats.” Sort of third-way, Tony Blair types. In hindsight, nominating them was a mistake, since as leaders of the supposed party of the left, they came to define leftism in the popular consciousness. This ended up pushing the American “center” into Reaganism, and that can’t be good.
Well the Democrats were getting creamed in presidential elections from Nixon till Clinton ran (and the one they won in 1976 after a disgraced President, an uncharismatic incumbent, and a bad economy was a very close election) so I think it was a good idea politics-wise.
I’ll grant you the consistency part. But economic protectionism? When was that ever a part of his campaign? I watched nearly every primary debate that went on the air, and read all the little news stories about what candidates were talking about at the time, and I don’t remember Santorum ever, at any point, running on a platform that had anything to do with economics. Sure, he’d answer questions that were asked him, but any time they gave him a chance to run at the mouth it wasn’t economics he was talking about.