My Bet is on Huntsman

On May 21st, happily preserved on the site as a draft, I apparently forgot to push the 'publish' button for a blog entitle 'My bet is on Huntsman'..

In a later post (June 5, entitled 'Unwrapping Huntsman') also missing here, I noted that he was being dismissed because according to the media 'nobody knows him', then I noted that he had wisely decided to announce AFTER the Republican debate of last week.

Following is the May 21st entry, which, I believe still holds true the day after he announced:

"On February 19th, 2007, I write in this space that ‘Obama would ‘continue a graceful yet powerful surge to the White House’.

Today I predict that barring an Act of God, John Huntsman, the only candidate that Obama rightly fears, will represent the Republican party in the 2012 presidential election.

Huntsman made his debut on mainstream TV yesterday from a New Hampshire living room, chatting with John King.  It was a relaxed, yet extensive introduction to the man who until a month ago was President Obama’s Ambassador to China.

Last night on Rachel Maddow’s show this ‘also Mormon’ ex-governor of Utah got plaudits from the progressive Democratic ex-mayor of Salt Lake City, Rocky Anderson.  Unlike the current front-runner and fellow Mormon Mitt Romney, who, as governor of Massachusetts created the template for Obamacare, he exhibits the same brand of Ivy league intelligence as Obama, but would have voted for Representative Tom Ryan’s proposal to trash anything like it.  A Huntsman/Obama debate, more than any other today conceivable, will worth watching.

The only opposition candidate who is an intellectual match for Obama, Huntsman will appeal to those who have given up on the President’s ability to bring change, hoping that this sophisticated Republican will tame his greedy fellows.

Unless the Chinese disavow him, his insider’s view of the country that is overtaking us will be valuable to the business community. Yet he is perfectly credible in shirt-sleeves.

Huntsman will be dubbed a ‘Rockefeller Republican’ by the pundits. A Nation reader wrote this week that Republicans used to believe in government, convinced they could manage it better than Democrats. The 2012 election will not be over who can manage government better, but how much of it there should be.  And Huntsman will argue that there is too much of it in China."