So long, John Huntsman, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22589.html
Utah’s own governor has been picked to be the new ambassador to China. Personally I think this is great for Utah and the US. Great for the US, because Huntsman is a little less loopy than your average Obama appointee, and great for Utah, because our lieutenant governor is an actual conservative republican.
Huntsman has been a mediocre governor, whose one saving grace was that he wasn’t Mike Leavitt, our prior, spectacularly sucky governor. I’ve met Huntsman, and he strikes me as a decent man, but ideologically wimpy. My primary issues with Huntsman are the same things that are brought up as bonus points in the various news articles.
Huntsman is a “moderate”. Which is liberal news-speak for somebody who agrees with them a lot. He’s weak on a bunch of mainline republican values, wishy-washy on others, and just kind of “meh” on the really important stuff. He’s all about global warming, cap & trade, civil unions, and so forth, and this is supposedly the republican governor of one of the reddest of all red states.
I was dreading his second term, because I have on good authority from a friend in the state legislature that he actually said in front of witnesses that he was glad he had gotten reelected, because now he work toward what he really believed in.
This is my favorite thing that has been popping up in the news:
Huntsman is often mentioned as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2012
On what planet? Okay, Mitt Romney was defeated by the elderly sock puppet, John McCain. Mitt had more personality than John, had a better resume, was smarter, funnier, more charismatic, and had been the governor of one of the bluest of the blue states. Both are mushy moderate Mormons. Romney was dismantled in the primary, but somehow another Mormon, governor of Utah even, is going to win? Give me a break. Heck, I’m Mormon, and from Utah, and I didn’t vote for Romney!
although some of his advisers think the party’s primary voters will be more prepared to accept his moderate views in 2016 if the party suffers a 1964-like cataclysm at the polls in 2012.
Remember everyone, the media assumption is that the only way republicans can win is to become democrats, which worked so very well for us when we ran that doddering old white-haired democrat last time around. I’m getting pretty sick and tired of all the national media sources trying to repeat a lie until it becomes truth, but we’re not that stupid, and we’re not falling for it. And yes, stupid media, we do like Rush Limbaugh more than Colin “nominate a moderate, oh wait, you did, okay, vote for the black guy” Powell.
On the plus side, ambassador to China is an important job, and Huntsman will probably do a decent job representing an administration of wusses. Sometime soon, when the dollar utterly collapses because of insane government spending, and we’re living in Weimar Republic II, Huntsman can help facilitate the Yaun becoming the world standard of currency…
Gary Herbert will be governor now. I’m okay with this. As far as I know, Herbert is an actual conservative. I know a little about the man, and so far so good. He’s kind of the John Nance Gardner to Huntsman’s FDR, the token conservative nominated to placate people like me. I’ll have to do some more research, as I do not know Herbert personally, but I’ve heard good things about him from people in the legislature that I trust. Now we can pass and sign a Montana style “Feds Go To Hell” bill!
