But this is America we're talking about so the reality is there's no way Huntsman will win his party's nomination. The reason? He talks too much sense.
Huntsman is a Mormon, was a successful governor of Utah and in 2009 was Obama's nomination for ambassador to China. He speaks Mandarin, something enough to get Australians a little excited when one of their politicians does the same, but that's not the extraordinary thing about this guy (some say that his willingness to represent Obama in China was extraordinary but I digress).
In an interview last weekend, Huntsman came out swinging against the other candidates for the Republican nomination. Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry, two candidates generating a lot of attention, are “extreme” and “unrealistic” according to Huntsman. Taking on the opposition crazies? That's extraordinary.
According to Huntsman, Perry's views that global warming was not caused by humans and that Ben Bernake, the Federal Reserve chairman, was possibly guilty of treason were quite dangerous.
Equally, Bachmann's claim that she would reduce the price of petrol to below $2 a gallon was make believe. “I just don't know what world that comment would come from,” Huntsman said.
“I think when you find yourself at an extreme end of the Republican Party, you make yourself unelectable,” said Huntsman of Bachmann and Perry, who both have agendas catering to radical Tea Party factions.
Huntsman is right but his moderate Conservative views appear equally unelectable within the current Republican Party. When Congressional leaders freely admit they were prepared to default on the US debt payments to make Obama look bad, the atmosphere within the Grand Old Party is anything but celebratory.
Huntsman did poorly in the Iowa “straw poll” last week, a test of where the Republican Party nomination might be heading. So did fellow moderate Tim Pawlenty, who withdrew his candidacy.
Bachmann did well which means large sections of influential Republicans seriously believe the antidote to Obama is not a right-wing version of the current President (Huntsman or Pawlenty) but, as Mother Jones magazine pointed out, someone “crazy like a fox.”
Bachmann sells a powerful message to her followers about all that is wrong with the world. Huntsman may be a Mormon but he's not the religious crazy in the room. Bachmann is driven by her version of Christianity where homosexuality is one of the world's great all-consuming evils.
She has told audiences about her fear of the Sex and the City TV show (actually, she may have a point), and that the soundtrack to The Lion King movie was dangerous for children because it was written by Elton John, who I am reliably informed is gay.
She reportedly also called for her audiences to pray for the singer Melissa Etheridge, a lesbian, claiming her breast cancer diagnosis was a “wake-up call”.
“It's part of Satan, I think, to say that this is 'gay,'” Bachmann said. “It's anything but gay.”
Obama's team is apparently hoping for all hope Bachmann or Perry win the Republican nomination. It's not hard to see why.
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