Huntsman: A Republican Presidential candidate who believes it’s better to be correct than right



Jon Huntsman Jr.

 Jon Huntsman Jr. is one of the few Republicans out there today I can respect, a throwback to the days of Everett Dirksen, Nelson Rockefeller and Maragret Chase Smith — Republicans who realized the most important responsibility of government leaders was to govern.

Huntsman is a former governor of Utah (2004-2009) who managed to cut taxes by $400 million — the largest in the state’s history — and still maintain a budget surplus. The Pew Research Center named Utah “the Best Managed State in America” while he was governor. When he ran for re-election in 2008, he received 78 percent of the vote.

He resigned as governor on Aug. 11, 2009, to become the U.S. Ambassador to China. He had previously worked as a White House assistant for President Reagan, was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Ambassador to Singapore by President Bush I and U.S. Trade Representative by No. 43. He resigned as the Ambassador to China effective April 30 and formally declared his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination just about a month ago, June 21.

But what I really like about Huntsman is that while the field of Republican Presidential ideologues are indulging themselves (i.e., handicapping themselves) by signing all these stupid pledges — the pledge never, ever to raise taxes under any circumstances (which is the main reason America is currently flirting with default); the Susan B, Anthony Pledge (signed by Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum) in which candidates promise never to appoint a pro-choice individual to any government position and to cut off all funding to Planned Parenthood; the cut, cap and balance pledge (signed by all the above plus Mitt Romney and Herman Cain), designed to completely gut the government and pass a balanced budget Constitutional amendment; and, the worst of the lot, the Marriage Vow (signed by Santorum and Bachmann) in which candidates pledge to oppose same-sex marriages and, until it was altered after a public outcry, contained a section that said a black child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by two parents than a black child born while Obama was President.

When asked why he hadn’t signed any of these pledges, Huntsman replied that the only allegiances he owes were to the American flag and his wife. You gotta admire a guy like that.