180 degrees

“This race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the American people and not worthy of this critical time in our nation’s history,” he told a room full of cameras and media.

Huntsman then announced he was endorsing Mitt Romney as his choice for the Republican nomination and the Presidency. The same Romney who Huntsman had previously claimed “enjoyed firing people”, was a flip-flopper for changing his positions on certain issues, a “pretzel candidate” and, my favourite, a “perfectly lubricated weather vane”.

Huntsman’s views on Romney were splashed across his website on videos minutes before his withdrawal speech. Then, as the New York Times reported, the attack videos quickly began disappearing from Huntsman websites.

The New York Times also reported that the Democratic National Committee’s Rapid Response Unit (there’s such a thing) promptly distributed a list of Huntsman’s tastiest attacks on Romney: “Tonight, Jon Huntsman announced he is ending his candidacy for president and on Monday, he will endorse Mitt Romney — the same Mitt Romney that Huntsman said lacked a core, couldn’t be trusted, was a ‘weathervane’ and was making himself ‘unelectable…”

Ah, politics. Huntsman’s comments on negativity, and perhaps respect, were apt if not apparently sincere on this particular day honouring one of the more significant figures in American history and one of its greatest modern civil leaders.

King was a great orator, famous for speeches that included “I Have A Dream” in 1963 and “I Have Been to the Mountain Top” delivered in Memphis the night before his assassination in 1968. Unlike many of today’s leaders, King was not a man of no can do. He was an aggressive change agent, unhappy with the status quo, and an advocate for the disenfranchised.

King’s death, at the age of 39, was cloaked in conspiracy theories. Similarly, establishing his birthday as a national holiday was controversial and hard-fought. Politicians, including former Presidential candidate John McCain, were against the introduction (McCain later changed his mind). Ronald Reagan eventually signed a bill in 1983 and in 1986 Martin Luther King Jr Day was observed for the first time.

The holiday was first celebrated in just 27 states. Arizona was one state that dragged its heels on adopting the holiday. That decision was confrontational enough for the National Football League, under pressure from its player’s union among others, to move the 1993 Super Bowl to California rather than have the state host the event as originally planned.

Much has changed for good in America since King and the 1960s. Still, the country heatedly divides on many issues, as demonstrated by candidate positions in the run up to this year’s election. It would be fascinating to know what an 83-year-old King would make of it all today.