Huntsman the Environmentalist

I think Jon Huntsman might be campaigning for my specific vote.  I'm not sure he even cares if he becomes president, as long as I vote for him.  Because, really, I can't see who his constituency might otherwise be.

Huntsman recently had dinner with a bunch of environmentalists and declared that "conservation is conservative."  Add this to a list of other moderate-to-liberal stances, and I'm not sure Huntsman has a firm grasp on today's Republican Party.  This is not a party of moderation, generally, and certainly not a party hospitable to even inklings of environmentalism.

I've already expressed a little political crush on him, so if he keeps reaching out to me personally like this I'm in trouble because my steamy new political partner is the Green Party and I don't want them getting jealous.  But a moderate Mormon environmentalist as President of the United States?  That's hot.

Don't You Make This Difficult For Me, Jon Huntsman

It's early, and my feelings are confused right now, but I think I'm starting to really like Jon Huntsman.  I mean, I liked him a lot when he was governor because we just never had governors like him in Utah.  He supported cap-and-trade legislation, he moved us forward on civil rights by supporting gay rights and civil unions, he supported immigrant rights, he called out those ridiculous congressional Republicans for being useless (his word was "inconsequential"), and he generally talked and acted like a moderate in a state where Republican politicians are almost universally crazies.  I even started to like that weird thing he does with his eyebrows.  He wasn't perfect, but he was pretty good.

Then he praised Obama and Clinton and went to work as the ambassador to China in the Obama administration, even when everyone knew he had national aspirations.

Now it is clear that he's running for president and he continues to talk like a moderate, reasonable conservative and, frankly, it's jarring.  Take a look at this article by the Deseret News and in particular the transcript of the interview he did with CNN's John King.