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Huntsman for president? Too early to say
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| Contributor | particleman |
| Last Edited | particleman Feb 21, 2009 10:38pm |
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| Category | Speculative |
| Media | Newspaper - Salt Lake Tribune |
| News Date | Sunday, February 22, 2009 04:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Fresh off a political trip to the key presidential primary state of South Carolina, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. demurred the speculation that he is gunning for the Oval Office. It's too early for that, he says.
Huntsman, settling into Washington for meetings with governors from across the country, said Saturday he's focusing his efforts on reviving the ideals of the Republican Party, not on a future White House bid.
"Truth be told, I never thought I'd run for governor two years before I was elected," said Huntsman, now in his self-limited second and final term. "It's really hard to see around the next turn and where you might be."
The governor -- who cemented himself further as a moderate Republican recently by endorsing civil unions and other gay-rights measures (a "brave" stand, Sabato says) -- has choice words for his party's direction. The GOP needs to modernize its world view, he says, and must revive itself as the "party of solutions, and not the party of empty rhetoric." "The stakes of the tent have to be pulled up and broadened," Huntsman said. "When you're left with limited demographics to draw from, limited geographic regions that are loyal, when you lose the youth vote to the extent we did, and voters of color, that's happened for a reason." Successful parties need to deliver results, he insists, not "hot air."
While some of his Southern counterparts, including governors from Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and South Carolina, have criticized President Barack Obama's massive stimulus package and are threatening not to take some of the money, Huntsman says Utah will cash the check and put the money into backfilling the state's budget hole and launching transportation projects. "If there are some governors that are complaining about stimulus money, then they shouldn't take it," Huntsman said. "It's pretty simple." |
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