Jon Huntsman wants you to know he rides a dirt bike. On (SET ITAL) real (END ITAL) dirt! Hes Salt of the Earth. Grease of the Garage. Dragster on the Dunes. Huntsmans runnin and gunnin for president. But underneath the Steve McQueen costumery this made-for-cable-TV Moderate Speed Racer is a creaky old John McCain on Wheels.
The former Utah Republican governor and Obama ambassador to China is the answer to an election-year problem that doesnt exist. The quadrennial problem in the minds of Beltway GOP strategists and liberal media chin-pullers is that the Republican Party isnt moderate civil self-critical or inclusive enough.
Huntsman is the latest no-labels flavor of the month a straw man of the same people who have spent the past year smearing entitlement reformers as senior citizen-killers budget hawks as Hitlers spawn border-security activists as racists and leading GOP women as sluts nuts and bimbos.
Just like the failed 2008 GOP contender whose consultants are now fueling the Huntsman bid McCain 2.0 is a big-spending accommodationist more in tune with the Democratic elite than with the conservative rank-and-file. In the shadow of the Statue of Liberty on Tuesday Huntsman assailed the current economic crisis overseen by the Obama administration as totally unacceptable and totally un-American. Yet Huntsman retains nothing but respect for his former boss in the White House and laments the loss of civility wrought by corrosive political debates.
This is all you need to know about the manufacturing of the Huntsman candidacy: Swooning reporters far outnumbered supporters at the kickoff in Liberty Park and at a follow-up rally in New Hampshire. CNNs enamored anchor Wolf Blitzer gushed: Heres what I especially liked about Jon Huntsmans presidential announcement in front of the Statue of Liberty.
He called for some civility in the race for the White House. Unlike several of the other Republican candidates he did not open with a blistering assault on President Obama.
Yeah. Who do all those uncivil Republicans running against Obama think they are -- opposing the opposition with oppositional rhetoric? Heaven forfend.
Former McCain mastermind John Weaver now a key Huntsman strategist said this week the campaign will be mellow. More like marshmallow. Instead of trashing enemies by name theyll keep it vague and mushy. Huntsman has been buoyed by months of glowing coverage from left-leaning dead-tree media whose reporters have lapped up his trashing of the GOP as devoid of ideas and a very narrow party of angry people. See? No names. No nasty. Embrace the civility!
While politely paying lip service to principles of tea party fiscal restraint Huntsman hopes no one remembers how 2000 Utah tea party activists booed him in April 2009 so corrosively it could have stripped the paint off a fleet of Harleys.
Utah conservatives raised their voices at the seminal tea party rally against Huntsman for championing $1.6 billion in Obama stimulus funds (Huntsman wanted even more money than that) -- and against GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch and then-GOP Sen. Bob Bennett for backing the Bush-Obama TARP bailout. The grassroots message: Send them home! A year later voters ousted Bennett from the GOP primary after four profligate terms in office. And Hatch is in for the fight of his entrenched incumbent life.
While state governments across the country are rejecting or repealing onerous cap-and-trade environmental regulations Huntsman is a climate-change Republican who backed radical emissions limits and green job fantasies. Just like McCain 1.0 did.
While state governments across the country follow Arizonas immigration enforcement model and Washington repeatedly rejects mass amnesty programs in the face of 9 percent unemployment Huntsman supports the costly DREAM Act an illegal alien bailout with a wider path to citizenship. Just like McCain 1.0 did.
While state governments rein in middle-class entitlement spending and Washington turns to means-testing Huntsman turned the SCHIP government-funded health plan for low-income children into a universal health insurance mandate. McCain 1.0 was for SCHIP before he was against it.
McCains Straight Talk Express ran out of gas when his former media paramours inevitably turned against him -- and his gambit to out-big government the Democrats blew up in his two faces. So it will be with McHuntsman and his campaign wheels to nowhere.
Columnist Michelle Malkin is syndicated by Creators.
Jon Huntsman wants you to know he rides a dirt bike. On (SET ITAL) real (END ITAL) dirt! Hes Salt of the Earth. Grease of the Garage. Dragster on the Dunes. Huntsmans runnin and gunnin for president. But underneath the Steve McQueen costumery this made-for-cable-TV Moderate Speed Racer is a creaky old John McCain on Wheels.
The former Utah Republican governor and Obama ambassador to China is the answer to an election-year problem that doesnt exist. The quadrennial problem in the minds of Beltway GOP strategists and liberal media chin-pullers is that the Republican Party isnt moderate civil self-critical or inclusive enough.
Huntsman is the latest no-labels flavor of the month a straw man of the same people who have spent the past year smearing entitlement reformers as senior citizen-killers budget hawks as Hitlers spawn border-security activists as racists and leading GOP women as sluts nuts and bimbos.
Just like the failed 2008 GOP contender whose consultants are now fueling the Huntsman bid McCain 2.0 is a big-spending accommodationist more in tune with the Democratic elite than with the conservative rank-and-file. In the shadow of the Statue of Liberty on Tuesday Huntsman assailed the current economic crisis overseen by the Obama administration as totally unacceptable and totally un-American. Yet Huntsman retains nothing but respect for his former boss in the White House and laments the loss of civility wrought by corrosive political debates.
This is all you need to know about the manufacturing of the Huntsman candidacy: Swooning reporters far outnumbered supporters at the kickoff in Liberty Park and at a follow-up rally in New Hampshire. CNNs enamored anchor Wolf Blitzer gushed: Heres what I especially liked about Jon Huntsmans presidential announcement in front of the Statue of Liberty.
He called for some civility in the race for the White House. Unlike several of the other Republican candidates he did not open with a blistering assault on President Obama.
Yeah. Who do all those uncivil Republicans running against Obama think they are -- opposing the opposition with oppositional rhetoric? Heaven forfend.
Former McCain mastermind John Weaver now a key Huntsman strategist said this week the campaign will be mellow. More like marshmallow. Instead of trashing enemies by name theyll keep it vague and mushy. Huntsman has been buoyed by months of glowing coverage from left-leaning dead-tree media whose reporters have lapped up his trashing of the GOP as devoid of ideas and a very narrow party of angry people. See? No names. No nasty. Embrace the civility!
While politely paying lip service to principles of tea party fiscal restraint Huntsman hopes no one remembers how 2000 Utah tea party activists booed him in April 2009 so corrosively it could have stripped the paint off a fleet of Harleys.
Utah conservatives raised their voices at the seminal tea party rally against Huntsman for championing $1.6 billion in Obama stimulus funds (Huntsman wanted even more money than that) -- and against GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch and then-GOP Sen. Bob Bennett for backing the Bush-Obama TARP bailout. The grassroots message: Send them home! A year later voters ousted Bennett from the GOP primary after four profligate terms in office. And Hatch is in for the fight of his entrenched incumbent life.
While state governments across the country are rejecting or repealing onerous cap-and-trade environmental regulations Huntsman is a climate-change Republican who backed radical emissions limits and green job fantasies. Just like McCain 1.0 did.
While state governments across the country follow Arizonas immigration enforcement model and Washington repeatedly rejects mass amnesty programs in the face of 9 percent unemployment Huntsman supports the costly DREAM Act an illegal alien bailout with a wider path to citizenship. Just like McCain 1.0 did.
While state governments rein in middle-class entitlement spending and Washington turns to means-testing Huntsman turned the SCHIP government-funded health plan for low-income children into a universal health insurance mandate. McCain 1.0 was for SCHIP before he was against it.
McCains Straight Talk Express ran out of gas when his former media paramours inevitably turned against him -- and his gambit to out-big government the Democrats blew up in his two faces. So it will be with McHuntsman and his campaign wheels to nowhere.
Columnist Michelle Malkin is syndicated by Creators.
