While The Other Right-Wing Contenders Scramble... Huntsman Decides To Have A Good Time

Willard is still counting on it being "his turn," on the anointment from the topdown party's Establishment, on the immense amount of money he has been able to raise among Mormons and fellow vulture capitalists, and, of course, on looking just a little weird in a roomful of out-and-out raving crackpots. He's even taken some time out to work up a plan and permit application to bulldoze his $12 million ocean side mansion, built in 1936 in tony La Jolla, to replace it with a monstrosity almost four times bigger.

Bachmann is busy reassuring mainstream voters that she can spell her name and Rick Perry came riding into the race ass-backwards on a Brahma bull, making a spectacle of himself and making a lot of disappointed voters take a second look at Barack Obama.

And those three are the top tier! Republican office holders-- especially those who have to face reelection in 2012-- are getting really worried and showing immense dissatisfaction with the presidential nomination offerings. They've been clamoring for horribly flawed candidates from Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin and George Pataki to the third-rate Insurance Industry shill who wants to abolish Medicare, Paul Ryan. In other words... no confidence in Romney (or the shabby alternatives that the teabaggers have puked up as alternatives).

Jon Huntsman actually sounds like a credible candidate making serious arguments about topics normal American voters want to see debated. But he's made next to no headway in a conversation dominated by shrill screaming heads like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Ann Couler, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage... and the pathetic candidates kowtowing to them and their hysterical ideas meant to goose ratings in a decimated, fractionalized media market where the most popular flavor-- vanilla-- doesn't do what garlic ice cream, Budweiser beer gelato, Chunky Bacon, Ben & Jerry's Sweddy Balls, or Ox Tongue ice cream will do in a world measured on the margins.

While Romney bogs down in designing a Western White House, Bachmann spins further and further out of control and Rick Perry advertises his God theory of governance, Huntsman is talking about things Republicans may not like but that normal Americans are interested in discussing-- like ending the occupation of Afghanistan.

We need to bring people home from Afghanistan. This should not be a nation-building exercise when we have nation-building to do right here in our own country. This is a counter-terror effort. We need people in Afghanistan who can collect intelligence, Special Forces capabilities and some element to train the national-- the Afghan national troops. But we should not be involved in nation-building.

And we've got to basically call it for what it is and get back to strengthening the core of this country or we are of no value to the rest of the world. That light, that goodness that traditionally has radiated over the years, that speaks to democracy, that speaks to liberty, that speaks to open markets and human rights. We're not projecting that goodness anymore. The world always is a better and a safer place with a strong America. And right now, we don't have a strong America.

Hunstman-- who slammed Perry for espousing an extremist agenda (anti-science, pro-secessionist) that makes him unelectable-- is calling the current self-selected crop of GOP candidates "sideshows." Unfortunately, they're sideshows dedicated to further wrecking the already anemic economic recovery to devastate American families in the hope of them blaming Obama for his inability to cope with right-wing obstructionism. Last week Huntsmen told Jake Tapper he wouldn't trust any of them!

I wouldn't necessarily trust any of my opponents right now, who were on a recent debate stage with me, when every single one of them would have allowed this country to default. You can imagine, even given the uncertainty of the marketplace the last several days and even the last couple of weeks, if we had defaulted the first time in the history of the greatest country that ever was, being 25 percent of the world's GDP and having the largest financial services sector in this world by a long shot, if we had defaulted, Jake, this marketplace would be in absolute turmoil. And people who are already losing enough as it is on their 401(k)s and retirement programs and home valuations, it would have been catastrophic.

So I have to say that there was zero leadership on display in terms of my opponents. Leaders-- zero leadership on display in terms of the president, who should have used the bully pulpit well ahead of time. He should have walked away from the teleprompter. The people want you to speak from your heart and soul. Tell us where you want us to go. Tell us what you expect from Congress. Tell us what's on your mind.

That never happened. And it waited until the eleventh hour and then we had some of my Republican opponents who basically, I think, recommended something that would have been catastrophic for this economy. I stood alone in terms of supporting the Boehner plan. Why? Because I don't think you can just allow the greatest nation that ever was, 25 percent of the world's GDP, to default. I thought the-- the implications would have been catastrophic. The global markets would have been a complete wreck.

Huntsman, frustrated with the goofballs in his own party, wants to take Obama on directly-- as an adult, not in a mudwrestling match. On Friday we all enjoyed this Huntsman quote meant to contrast himself with the freakshow he finds himself in-- although it was aimed directly at right-wing media darling Rick Perry.


The one far fewer people saw... also posted Friday-- but from Huntsman's daughters:


I don't know how much good any of this is going to do Huntsman in a Republican primary contest defined by Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and geared towards hate-or-greed-obsessed political Neanderthals, but... maybe he should switch parties and run against Obama as a Democrat. He'd probably get more support than he's getting as a Republican!