Playbook 2012_ The Right Fights Back (Politico Inside Election 2012) - Mike Allen [22]
* * *
Stuck at the bottom of most polls was the Republican candidate the Obama camp had feared the most. “I think that our guys were worried about Huntsman, I think he was the one who people were most worried about,” said a White House insider who speaks frequently with members of the Obama high command, in an interview with us in Manchester, New Hampshire, in late October. GOP operatives were always scornful of Jon Huntsman’s candidacy, regarding him as the sort of media darling who appeals to liberal pundits and no one else. “He’s an absurd candidate. He’s running from the left in a Republican primary,” said one longtime Republican consultant in late August. Like many GOP operatives, this one was dubious about Huntsman’s chief strategist, John Weaver, a maverick in the trade who had devoted himself to John McCain in 2008 until he was pushed aside in a campaign shake-up. It was Weaver who, more than any other political pro, persuaded Huntsman to take a shot in 2012. “This is the little movie that John Weaver has in his head,” said the rival consultant. “It’s a crazy little movie but it’s not going to happen.” (“The money guys don’t like Weaver,” added a Romney adviser. “Too much strife.”)
If Huntsman had a chance, he probably missed it at his first GOP debate, in Ames, Iowa, in August. The moderator, Fox News’s Bret Baier, had a question for the eight candidates: “Say you had a deal, a real spending cuts deal, 10 to 1, spending cuts to tax increases.… Who on this stage would walk away from that deal?” All of the candidates raised their hands—including Huntsman. Here had been his moment to break out of the pack, and he passed.
Huntsman casts himself as an anti-politician and truth teller. He is the only GOP candidate who has refused to sign the “No New Taxes” pledge passed around by conservative activist Grover Norquist. In his conversation with us, Huntsman went on at some length to describe how much he dislikes compromising his principles to play for votes. Using a red pen and yellow highlighter, he said that he pores over his campaign speeches. “You go through the paragraphs and you say, Is this hype? Is it pandering? Is it true? Is it reality? Is it the truth? I hate pandering stuff. I hate phrases like Drill, Baby, Drill kind of stuff. I hate that. I hate political bromides.” We ventured, “But they’re effective,” and Huntsman shot back, “Well, I understand they are, and maybe that’s one of the hard lessons for me and [Ron] Paul. I hate that stuff. People say, Repeal Obamacare, everybody cheered. I hate that stuff. Unless you’re willing to say what you’re going to do when you say Repeal Obamacare, you hadn’t ought to be up there saying Repeal Obamacare. It’s hollow language, and we shouldn’t have any patience for that in politics. We need solutions today more than ever before and we’re just not getting them.”
Asked why he didn’t take a chance at the Ames debate, Huntsman struggled to come up with a clear answer. “I regret I didn’t use the opportunity to say, Here is how I would do it. I would raise the revenue and reinvest it in the tax code.” Huntsman fell back on an excuse. “You’re playing out in real time on live television the idea that you’ve got a split second to respond to a fundamentally important issue.…” He tried again: “My first debate, and say I’m not even going to get a chance to rebut, they don’t allow you to do that or raise a hand, where do you feel on this, as opposed to knowing now, that’s a BS question, give me a chance to respond to it, and let me tell you how we’d raise revenue and reinvest it in the tax code and lower the rate.” Huntsman was apparently referring to his proposal to reform taxes by getting rid of loopholes and lowering rates. But even months after the event, he couldn’t quite find the words to express himself.
Sitting unrecognized in the lobby of the Hilton Garden in Manchester, Huntsman told how his wife, Mary Kaye, scolded him for not greeting the front