Jon Huntsman for President

After over a year of inactivity I have been engaged in a surge of political writing. First I announced my break with libertarianism, then I outlined my specific beliefs, now I am translating that to the real world. I am not one who makes a big deal out of who controls the presidency. I think it matters much more for your day to day which party controls Congress or even who is on your city council. Still, the presidency can provide some important moral leadership, it can "set the tone" so to speak. On my page you will find a piece from over two years ago endorsing a Jesse Ventura candidacy for president in 2012. Ventura is not in this race and given his turn toward being a professional conspiracy theorist I doubt I would vote for him even if he did run. There is another candidate who has recently thrown his hat into the ring that I support and that is former Governor Jon Huntsman (R-Utah).

At first I was approaching this coming election with caution. I was not satisfied with Obama but not with the Republican field either. If I were to have voted I think I would have voted for Ron Paul out of protest. As I explained earlier my views have diverged greatly from Ron Paul's in the past year but I still believe he is a better man than most and a rare honest politician. Ron Paul certainly deserves to win the presidential race much more than people like Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney who change their views only to suit he electorate. Don't get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with changing views because I have had a change of heart myself. That being said there is a difference between somebody genuinely changing his mind as I have done and somebody trying to cover up his previous stances and act like he never believed them. This is what Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are doing. To put it into perspective what if I ran for office and denied that I had ever been a libertarian? This is more or less the moral equivalent of what they are doing. In spite of my personal admiration for Ron Paul's convictions I will be supporting Jon Huntsman instead and doing what I can to get him elected.

Politics is the art of the possible. Somebody like Ron Paul has zero shot of being president, he just can't win at the national level. Jon Huntsman by contrast is somebody I could realistically see in the White House actually winning a general election. The real trial will be to get Jon Huntsman through the primary. I think Huntsman can do it if the conservative vote is split and Independents cross the aisle to vote for him in open primary states. Some hard right conservatives will no doubt bash Huntsman for some of his stances which disagree with conservative orthodoxy and the fact that he worked for Obama. These will be tough obstacles to overcome in a GOP primary but I think they can be. What we need is more grassroots support for Huntsman. I think the best that can happen is for those of us who are Huntsman supporters to explain to friends and family members why we support Huntsman. There are five primary reasons I support Huntsman for president.

First, Jon Huntsman is willing to put ideology and partisanship aside and work to make America a better place. Huntsman was appointed by Barack Obama to be ambassador to China, he is friendly to Democrats. The far right Tea Party types will not like this, they will want a read meat raging conservative candidate. I on the other hand recognize that America has major problems and that we will always be and an ideological stalemate if we continue to elect hardcore conservatives and liberals. Republican hatred of Obama is simply too intense in my mind for a serious deficit deal to happen under his watch. If Huntsman were elected he could work with Democrats far better than Obama has worked with Republicans while at the same time simmering the more extreme tendencies in the Republican primary.

Second, Jon Huntsman shares a similar philosophy to me. Huntsman is moderately economically conservative but he is willing to endorse government intervention in the economy where it is needed. Huntsman believes in global warming but supports pragmatic solutions to the problem. Huntsman is pro-life but is willing to take moderate stances on other social issues. Huntsman's overall political philosophy, while there are differences, more or less mirrors my own.

Third, did I mention Huntsman is pro-life? I think this is a key reason I am supporting a Republican this year. If Obama were merely pro-choice it would be one thing and he claims to be personally pro-life but politically pro-choice as many Democrats do. I think this is an inconsistency, one I disagree with, but if it were all it is I suppose I could look past that because repealing Roe vs. Wade isn't exactly on the table. When I look at Obama's record it seems he goes beyond being merely pro-choice to being ambivalent about, or even supportive of abortion itself. His statement that if his daughters got pregnant he wouldn't want them, "Punished with a baby," seemed to suggest that he would see nothing wrong with his daughters choosing abortion. Secondly, he reinstated the Mexico City policy, defunded crisis pregnancy centers, and fought to keep funding Planned Parenthood. No Federal funds may be used for abortions by law but Planned Parenthood is an organization that actively supports abortion and will point women in that direction. Obama announced in his early days that he would make passing the Freedom of Choice Act a major priority of his administration. Worst of all, in the Illinois legislature he supported allowing doctors to simply kill babies who performed abortions as opposed to upholding a "born alive rule" requiring doctors to keep the child alive. Obama supporters tried to convince me that he supports "abortion reduction" in 2008. The record speaks for itself. Jon Huntsman is a pro-life candidate.

Fourth, the China issue. Huntsman served as ambassador to China and recognizes its role in the world. China WILL be a superpower rivaling our own. In this era of displacement of Americas status as the world's only superpower what we need is a president who understands China and America's place in the world. Hopefully he can deal with China on a fair and equal basis, asserting America's interests while not saber rattling against China.

Fifth, Huntsman has criticized the War in Afghanistan not to mention America's excessive actions overseas. The way I see it Huntsman presents a strong case for reassessing America's role in the world without resorting to the fever swamps of isolationism. Ron Paul has put forth a far stronger argument on this issue to be sure, but the way I see it Huntsman is able to gain more credibility on this issue among the establishment and actually has a bigger chance of being president. In other words reassessing America's foreign policy has been an issue near and dear to my heart. It is why I supported Ron Paul in 2008 when he was the lone reasonable voice among the Republicans. Jon Huntsman shares many of the same themes even if he is not as pure as Ron Paul on this issue but he has a much, much bigger chance of being able to impact this issue in a meaningful way. The way I measure it at this point if I support Huntsman I am doing a lot more for this cause in the sense of actually making progress than I will if I get on board with yet another futile Ron Paul campaign.

Finally I'll add one more reason. Republicans have a tendency to eventually warm up to losers. If Huntsman loses this time his name will be out in the media and he will have a much more realistic chance of actually becoming president in 2016. This is why every vote for Huntsman matters even if he doesn't win this time.

No doubt Huntsman's positions will outrage many ideologues on the far right, they will see him as a mush minded liberal who sucks up to Obama. In the end though the way I see it now, as I mentioned in an earlier article, politics is not about fighting reflexively for some ideological pipe dream, it is about recognizing the imperfections in man and working to make our world more livable in the here and and now. With Jon Huntsman there is no Shining City on a Hill promised at the end but what is promised is that if he does become president America will have a good chance at having peace, prosperity, and good government for four years. After all is not this what everybody wants? Jon Huntsman is a moderate, but he is an honest moderate, not like the chameleon Mitt Romney. He deserves every vote he can get in 2012. He has mine.