Why I like Jon Huntsman

I am a liberal Democrat and always have been.  I want President Obama to win re-election.  So why on earth am I pulling for Jon Huntsman to win today in New Hampshire?  He has the best chance of beating the president.  And yet, here I am, hoping he pulls it out.  Intellectually, it makes so sense.

Even if Huntsman didn’t have the best chance of beating the president, I shouldn’t like him. He is really a conservative guy — ‘pro-life,’ supports the horrible Paul Ryan plan to dismantle Medicare, is all about the Second Amendment, you know, my type of person.  So what the hell am I thinking?

Running for president is serious business.  It’s a serious job.  I write political satire so the whole circus that has been the GOP presidential nomination process has been like a gift from God.  Come on, I was all about the Cain Train.  But as a citizen, the idea of a President Cain, Santorum, Gingrich or Bachmann scares the crap out of me. Whenever I want to bring up Ronald Reagan as a positive an angel loses its wings but one thing he had in his arsenal when negotiating with the Soviets was intelligence. (Oh, and hell just froze over a little bit.)  Can you imagine a Herman Cain in that kind of situation?  No?  That’s because we all probably wouldn’t be here now to think about it.

When did we go from picking the best candidate to picking the least insane?

That is why I like Jon Huntsman.  I like that he is sane and reasonable.  I like that Pew called Utah the best run state in the country when he was governor.  And to me, it is a plus that he served in the Obama administration.  What happened to politics ending at the coasts?  When I travel overseas, I am am American first and a Democrat second.  That is what I like about Jon Huntsman.

The Cain Train goes off the rails

Herman Cain, we hardly knew yeI predict by the end of the week we will see a statement like this from the Cain Train:

“As you know, from my repeated and vociferous denials of every doing anything wrong, inappropriate or even less than brilliant — at any point, ever — that my candidacy for president has rattled some people.  They remain desperately afraid of a black, businessman moving into the White House.  They know I can win, and neither the Democratic machine, nor some of the other GOP campaign, can let that happen.  

“Both my wife, Gloria, and I remain convinced that Herman Cain is exactly what the doctor ordered to lead this great country at this time in history.  While the persistent rumors and allegations about me don’t bother me at all, as I know they are not true, the toll they are taking on my wife is another story.  I don’t want to give in to these fear mongerers and mud slingers but after meeting with the joint chiefs of my campaign, we determined these attacks will keep coming so I am ending my current campaign for the GOP nomination.

“Herman Cain will be back.  Maybe as soon as next year — I will base my decision to run as an Independent on whether I can get Donald Trump to run with me.  If that doesn’t work out, he is unpredictable and not nearly the handsome rascal Rick Perry is — or that I am — this is not the last presidential run for the Cain Train.

“Thank you for your support, God bless you, God bless America and God bless Godfather’s Pizza.”

Make. It. Stop.

Oh. My. God.  Did you read the news?  The Congressional “Super Committee” failed.  I cannot speak for you, but I was shocked that anyone — including the expert media — believed anything would be accomplished here.  Especially after the House took up and passed such groundbreaking legislation as the determination that pizza is a vegetable.  How can you expect anyone to work after that?  I mean, they’re only human.

Normally, blaming the media feels like a cop-out.  We love to hate the news media when they use their ink and air time covering the Karashians or Snooki and conveniently forget their story selections are based on what we buy.  Don’t care who Brad Pitt is screwing?  Don’t read the tabloids.  In this instance, however they seem to be more than mere spectators.  Andrea Mitchell didn’t see this coming?  If I saw this coming, she should have.  And thus the political media, who build up these paper tigers, feel more complicit.  The coverage of this debacle — as was the deficit ceiling fiasco before it — borders on media malpractice.  Real conversations about serious problems become showdowns at the OK corral, great for ratings but not so much for anything else.

But blaming the media remains a cop-out.  As does blaming the Tea Party.  The Tea Party didn’t cause this problem, they may not be helping but we aren’t here because of them.  Remember they only came on the scene a few years ago.  Even Grover Norquist didn’t cause this.

So, if we cannot blame the media and we cannot blame the right wing (or the left wing) — who caused this?   We did.

President Obama got into trouble when a clip of him calling Americans lazy (ironic given how many GOP presidential candidates have called #OWS protesters lazy and dirty).  I don’t think we are lazy but we are whiny.  We want everything without paying for anything.  Most of us agree that we need a good military, decent education and a host of other programs but we don’t want to pay for them.  The disparity of what we want and what we want to pay for extends beyond taxes and spending: We tell ourselves — and the world — that the US represents the pinacle of exceptionalism and socioeconomic fluidity but we trail most of our peer countries.  Think taxes destroy freedom and rob citizens of happiness?  Don’t tell that to Norway.  Taxes are much higher there — especially when the Value Added Tax (VAT) is included — yet they have the highest standard of living on the planet.

Back to our Congressional conundrum.  We have the Congress we settled for.  Each member is elected to represent their district, their part of the country, their special interests.  By special interests, I do not mean lobbyists but constituents.  Through gerrymandering, a word I learned in junior high school social studies but never thought about until moving to Washington, Congressional districts have been distilled to the point where extreme views are common place.  Our Congresspeople don’t compromise because we don’t want them to.

The Congressional “super committee” was never supposed to succeed; it was set up to do exactly what it did — give the impression of action while doing nothing to accomplish anything.

Who would Reagan endorse?

Every Republican candidate has referenced President Reagan at some point.  All want to be seen as being the most like their icon.  After watching most of the debates, as you know, there have been many.  If Reagan were here today, he would endorse (drum roll, please): Jon Huntsman.

While his level headed and non-rabid demeanor has made many paint him as a liberal, he is not.  He is pro-life.  He has a 100 percent approval rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA).  He worked for President Obama, sure, but he has also worked for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.  He served two terms as governor of Utah. Those are not liberal bonafides.  You don’t have to take my word for it — and I am a liberal so you shouldn’t (it’s all about perspective, you know).  But Haley Barbour knows a thing or two about politics and conservatives and has said this:

Jon Huntsman and I served together, and while we don’t agree on some issues, there’s no question that he’s a conservative. He’s way to the right of Barack Obama for goodness sake. But yeah, I consider Jon a conservative. As I said, we have some issues that I think are important that we have different views on. But he was in the Reagan administration, elected governor of a very conservative state — elected and re-elected by the way. So if you’re asking me if Jon Huntsman is qualified to the Republican nominee for President of the United States, the answer is, of course he is.”  View it here.

Plus, Huntsman did a good job.  Taxes went down.  Job creation went up.  The Pew Center on the States found that Utah was the “best managed states” under his tenior.

And Huntsman has solid foreign policy experience and knowledge.  We live in an increasingly interconnected world.  We need someone at the help who will not need to rely on advisors in high level meetings with foreign leaders — they will not be in the room.

President Ronald Reagan — and I can assure you waxing nostalgic for him is something I never thought I would do — would look at the current crop of GOP candidates and pick Jon Huntsman because he is a competent, pragmatic, intelligent and thoughtful person.  He has been consistently conservative.  To my friends on the right, being rabidly anti-Obama doesn’t make you conservative, it makes you rabidly anti-Obama.  There are plenty of lefties who are upset with him, too.

But what about the fact that Huntsman worked for President Obama?  Reagan started off as a Democrat but more than that, he saw the value in working with the other side of the aisle.  Tip O’Neil never would have given a press conference saying that “Democrats and Republicans are drom different planets.”  Never. Would. Have. Happened.

As for the rest?  Mitt Romney would be a second choice, if we could figure out WHICH Mitt Romney would be headed to the White House.  After that, I almost thing Reagan would stay home rather than vote for someone proud of their ignorance.  Yes, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry — I am talking to you.  Newt Gingrich?  Believes his own PR too much and will self-destruct — we want a winner here, people.  Ron Paul & Rich Santorum, right, like that’s gonna happen.

I want President Obama win reelection but having Jon Huntsman as his rival — as scary as that might be for Democrats as he has the best chance of any of them to win the general, it would move our conversation to a better, more productive place.

Every four years, we have the opportunity to look at our government and decide how we want to govern ourselves, who we want to be as a people and what we can do — together — to solve our problems.  We have serious issues that deserve more of our attention that birth certificates or fighting over who knows less about what.

How stupid does he think we are?

There’s one angle to Herman Cain’s presidential campaign that has not been covered.  One question I would like to ask: How stupid do you think we are?  Clearly, the answer is very, very, very stupid.

After watching him in the debates and doing interviews, it is pretty clear that he lacks even the most rudimentary knowledge of policy and politics.   I didn’t think it was possible to be alive during the last decade without having heard of neo-cons.  And his foreign policy knowledge is downright scary.  Didn’t know China has had nuclear weapons for fifty years?  You think the Israelis would be open to discussing the ‘right of return?’  Do you read any news at all?  And for good measure, the 9-9-9 plan would be horrible for everyone — especially the poor and anyone living on a fixed income.  The federal sales tax of 9 percent would be a tax increase on everyone, and the 9 percent income tax would be a tax cut for the wealthy and a big tax hike for those who are barely holding on.

What makes Cain’s economic plan even worse is that he doesn’t seem to understand it all that well.  I thought Governor Mitt Romney made a great point about the sales tax.  He asked Cain if the sales tax included in his plan would replace the current state sales taxes.

“No, your’re mixing apples with oranges,” Cain said.

“So I am going to get a bushel of oranges and apples?” Romney asked.

“You’re mixing apples with oranges,” Cain replied.

Way to stay on message but he didn’t answer the question and I think that is because he didn’t understand it.  Supporters point to his business successes and he done well but I don’t sense a whole lot of intellectual curiosity there.  In his defense, no one knows everything but being proud of knowing nothing doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence.

The newest political scandal is almost the least important clue that this man would be a disastrous president.  But the allegations are serious — and growing more so as more women come forward with stories about Cain.

Herman Cain’s response to the allegations — and it’s hard to use the ‘none of this is true’ line when there are two recorded settlements with the women in question.  But his denials have morphed from one to another so much that he’s only making this much worse for himself. Threatening to sue Politico in a move inspired by Dan Snyder, won’t help things.

Mr. Cain, you are not ready for prime time and everything you do just makes that case more.