Huntsman Postmortem

Great comment follows this column on why John Huntsman failed.

astorian| 1.17.12 @ 4:39PM

There is certainly much for a conservative to admire in John Huntsman’s record. And if he’d chosen to RUN on that admirably conservative record, he might have stood a chance of winning.

But he DIDN’T run on his conservative record. Instead, from Day One, he ran as a liberal. He treid to appeal to the Jon Stewart’s, Anderosn Coopers and Stephen Colbert’s, while not too subtly sending out hints that “I’m not a stupid yahoo, like all those OTHER conservatives.”

I thought EVERYBODY knew that, if you want to become President, the trick is to win over your party’s base during primary season and THEN start moving toward the center AFTER you’ve nailed down the nomination. Remember, Bill Clinton didn’t attack Sistah Souljah until long AFTER he’d sewn up the allegiance of the Democratic party’s black and McGovernite voters.

By contrast, Jon Huntsman began his “Sistah Souljah” attacks right at the start of his campaign. That was unforgivably STUPID! If Huntsman were well known and well respected as a principled conservative, the Right might have forgiven him his attempts at posing as a moderate- they’d have understood that, “He’s really one of us, but he has to be practical and broaden his appeal.” . But despite Huntsman’s impressive resume, most conservatives just didn’t know him very well yet and had no reason to trust him or to give him the benefit of their doubt. When he started acting and talking like a liberal, they had no way of being sure it was an act.

Given a choice between a lifelong liberal who’s been trying to SOUND like a conservative (Mitt Romney) and a lifelong conservative who’s been trying to SOUND like a liberal, a large plurality of conservatives went with the guy who’s campaigning (however implausibly) as a conservative.