Huntsman To Drop Out

[General Mung Beans]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012 ... p-race/?hp

Huntsman Says He’s Quitting G.O.P. Race
By JIM RUTENBERG AND JEFF ZELENY

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Jon M. Huntsman Jr. informed his advisers on Sunday that he intends to drop out of the Republican presidential race, ending his candidacy a week before he had hoped to revive his campaign in the South Carolina primary.

Mr. Huntsman, who had struggled to live up to the soaring expectations of his candidacy, made plans to make an announcement as early as Monday. He had been set to participate in an evening debate in Myrtle Beach.

Matt David, campaign manager to Mr. Huntsman, confirmed the decision in an interview Sunday evening. “The governor and his family, at this point in the race, decided it was time for Republicans to rally around a candidate who could beat Barack Obama and turn around the economy,” Mr. David said. “That candidate is Gov. Mitt Romney.”

A third-place finish in the New Hampshire primary last week failed to jump start Mr. Huntsman’s flagging candidacy, aides said, and his campaign limped into South Carolina with little money. Mr. Huntsman has spent days pondering his future in the race, but aides said that he concluded he was unlikely to topple Mitt Romney or match the momentum of his Republican rivals in the conservative Southern primary.

The decision from Mr. Huntsman came on the same day that he received the endorsement from The State, the newspaper in the capital of Columbia. He had campaigned in South Carolina over the weekend, not giving any indication that the end was near.

Mr. Huntsman first signaled his presidential ambitions here in South Carolina in May, days after returning from Beijing, where he had been the United States ambassador to China. He surrounded himself with a veteran roster of advisers who positioned Mr. Huntsman as a new brand of Republican.

He announced his candidacy in June, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, calling for a more civil kind of presidential campaign and promising a better future than the one that President Obama would provide.

“He and I have a difference of opinion on how to help a country we both love,” Mr. Huntsman said of Mr. Obama. “But the question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president, not who’s the better American.”

But the campaign of “civility, humanity and respect” that Mr. Huntsman promised quickly faded into the background as his Republican rivals seized the attention — and the support — of a party faithful that seemed more interested in red meat politics.

Voters also seemed wary of a candidacy by a man whose most recent service was to the very many he now wanted to oust. Fawning letters that Mr. Huntsman wrote about Mr. Obama’s leadership did not help that case.

For months, Mr. Huntsman languished near the bottom in the national polls and eventually gave up on competing in Iowa. He moved his campaign headquarters to Florida, betting that he could wait until that primary to make his move.

But as the first contests got closer, Mr. Huntsman made the decision to move his campaign to New Hampshire, where he hoped that the presence of independent voters would boost his chances.

Mr. Huntsman did better in New Hampshire than polls might have suggested, but he came in a distant third behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

Mr. Huntsman’s campaign had been spearheaded from the beginning by John Weaver, a veteran Republican consultant who had once been a top adviser to Senator John McCain during his presidential bids.

Mr. Weaver had argued that Mr. Huntsman was just the person to take on Mr. Obama. The son of a billionaire corporate titan from Utah, Mr. Huntsman was the two-term governor of Utah with impeccable foreign policy credentials.

And Mr. Obama’s top advisers seemed to see the danger in Mr. Huntsman’s candidacy as well, signaling in 2009 that they thought he might a strong presidential contender.

At one point in January of 2011, Mr. Obama joked about a possible Huntsman candidacy at a news conference, saying that “I’m sure that him having worked so well with me will be a great asset in any Republican primary.”

The impact of Mr. Huntsman’s departure is not clear. Polls have indicated that he has little support in South Carolina and his lack of money means that he had been unable to affect a campaign conversation that is dominated by television commercials now that it has moved out of the first two early primary states.

But his decision to leave at the start of the week means that the two debates this week — one on Monday and another on Thursday — will be less crowded.

And his quick move to back Mr. Romney could help the front runner withstand efforts by social conservatives in South Carolina to coalesce around a single alternative to Mr. Romney.

Mr. Huntsman is the latest announced Republican candidate to drop out of the race. Herman Cain dropped his bid in December amid accusations of sexual misconduct; Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, dropped out shortly after a disappointing finish in the Iowa straw poll this summer; and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota left the race after finishing last in Iowa.

Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.

The only candidate I really liked in this race is now gone...

[Todeswind]

God fucking damnit! Is the GOP trying to make me vote for Obama? Seriously?

[Terralthra]

I wonder if he dropped out because the media pointed out that Stephen Colbert was polling higher than Huntsman?

[FSTargetDrone]

God fucking damnit! Is the GOP trying to make me vote for Obama? Seriously?

You're seriously surprised about this? Huntsman never had a chance.

[Sea Skimmer]

Not even a remote chance. He spent almost his entire campaign and all his money in New Hampshire to get a distinctly third place. I doubt he ever planned on more then a chance as a VP slot, as well as just putting his name out for possible future campaigns.

[JME2]

And another one bites the dust.

[Todeswind]

God fucking damnit! Is the GOP trying to make me vote for Obama? Seriously?

You're seriously surprised about this? Huntsman never had a chance.

Not surprised but definitely disappointed, Huntsman was the candidate I liked. He was the candidate who's policies didn't seem.... dumb... yes dumb is the word I want to use... For some stupid reason I'd hoped that the polls in Iowa wouldn't last because all the other candidates are pants on head retarded.

[Flagg]

Huntsman supported the Ryan budget to kill medicare. Fuck him.

[Gandalf]

I think it says something about how crazy the GOP have become that Huntsman is viewed so positively, despite not being far from the GOP mainstream.

[UnderAGreySky]

TENS of Republicans are now inconsolable.

Huntsman supported the Ryan budget to kill medicare. Fuck him.

You know, that was bad, but IMO not 'Fuck Him!' material. It is just belief in mildly misguided ideas, something that can be debated around. I found his economic plan terrible, though. It was 12 pages of fluff with not a single morsel of maths or any charts to back it up.

And yet he was saner than the rest, including Romney. Sigh.

[Flagg]

It says more about the media, really. They portray Hunstman as this almost centrist guy when his policies line up pretty well with Mitt Romney.

[Crossroads Inc.]

No surprise for me, largely because huntsman is one of the few in the race who KNOWS he has no chance and is sane enough to admit it.

I've said before, most of the others that HAVE no chance at this point:
Gingrich,
Santorum,
Perry,

They really have NO chance agaisnt Mitt, but are still in it not for the race, but most likely to make money and for a cooshy deal wtih FOX afterwards.

[Lord Zentei]

Unfortunate, but not unexpected. He probably expected a poor showing in North Carolina, so better to quit now while he's still got some cred from New Hampshire. Hopefully, he'll not disappear from the public radar entirely.

As for the calls of "fuck him": while not perfect, he was less bad than the other main candidates in the GOP, even though he's similar to Romney in many respects. Moreover, it's not just a matter of Huntsman vs someone else, but also a matter of shifting the political spectrum back towards the center. If Obama wins in November (and especially if he gains more traction in Congress), then the Democrats will probably feel vindicated in their center-right approach, and the GOP will remain on the lunatic fringe. An ostensibly centrist Republican beating Obama might change that, at least somewhat.

[Broken]

No surprise for me, largely because huntsman is one of the few in the race who KNOWS he has no chance and is sane enough to admit it.

I've said before, most of the others that HAVE no chance at this point:
Gingrich,
Santorum,
Perry,

They really have NO chance agaisnt Mitt, but are still in it not for the race, but most likely to make money and for a cooshy deal wtih FOX afterwards.

I don't think they really have a chance either, but didn't a bunch of evangelical leaders just endorse Santorum? It probably will not be near enough to put him over Romney, but if the fundamentalist vote rallies to Santorum, they can make Mitt work for it.

[Zinegata]

It says more about the media, really. They portray Hunstman as this almost centrist guy when his policies line up pretty well with Mitt Romney.

It's not mere media invention however. Even high-ranking Democrats like Howard Dean and Bill Clinton have all but endorsed the guy whenever they were asked about the Republican race.

I'd bluntly trust Howard Dean and Bill Clinton over some random angry voice on the Internet.

[Darth Wong]

It says more about the media, really. They portray Hunstman as this almost centrist guy when his policies line up pretty well with Mitt Romney.

It's not mere media invention however. Even high-ranking Democrats like Howard Dean and Bill Clinton have all but endorsed the guy whenever they were asked about the Republican race.

That's strategy, not sincerity. They know that by endorsing Huntsman as a "reasonable" candidate even though he has zero chance of winning the nomination, they can send a message that they are not being partisan.

Huntsman is the same sort of "fuck the poor, help the rich" douchebag asshole as the rest of them. The only difference is that he doesn't walk around trying to ram the Bible down the throat of everyone he meets.

[Zinegata]

That's strategy, not sincerity. They know that by endorsing Huntsman as a "reasonable" candidate even though he has zero chance of winning the nomination, they can send a message that they are not being partisan.

I really don't think so; they both seem to just like the guy on a personal level from the way they plug him. They don't talk about his positions, but they apparently like the way he thinks.

At worst, they chose him as the "safe" answer as everyone else is a looney :p.

Besides which, Clinton isn't exactly running for reelection.

[Darth Wong]

That's strategy, not sincerity. They know that by endorsing Huntsman as a "reasonable" candidate even though he has zero chance of winning the nomination, they can send a message that they are not being partisan.

I really don't think so; they both seem to just like the guy on a personal level from the way they plug him. They don't talk about his positions, but they apparently like the way he thinks.

At worst, they chose him as the "safe" answer as everyone else is a looney :p.

Besides which, Clinton isn't exactly running for reelection.

Of course he's not running for re-election. But he wants the Democrat Party to win, and he knows that he is still strongly identified with the Democrat brand. It's good strategy to play up the narrative that the Democrats are reasonable and willing to reach across the aisle, while the Republicans are batshit-crazy.

[Simon_Jester]

It says more about the media, really. They portray Hunstman as this almost centrist guy when his policies line up pretty well with Mitt Romney.

It's not mere media invention however. Even high-ranking Democrats like Howard Dean and Bill Clinton have all but endorsed the guy whenever they were asked about the Republican race.
I'd bluntly trust Howard Dean and Bill Clinton over some random angry voice on the Internet.

Put it this way:

Someone hands you a menu and asks you which sandwich you like best. You can choose:

The shit sandwich
The cowflop sandwich
The bat guano sandwich
The seven day old rotten fish sandwich
The six day old rotten fish sandwich

None of the options are palatable. I would rather go hungry than eat any of them. But if I had to pick one, I would pick the six day old rotten fish sandwich, because it is slightly less bad than the only other option that is even conceivably edible.

Does this mean I am endorsing six day old rotten fish sandwiches as a "moderate" food?

[Grumman]

I really don't think so; they both seem to just like the guy on a personal level from the way they plug him. They don't talk about his positions, but they apparently like the way he thinks.

An opinion I share. He seems like an alright guy, and you don't have to agree with his opinions to think that - I used to say the same thing about Huckabee, despite his Jesus-shaped blind spot.