Jon Huntsman is the most electorally dangerous Republican in America.
The former Governor of Utah will not win his party’s nomination in 2012, despite the fact that he has assembled a strong campaign team, raised money and undertaken a vigorous and professional campaign schedule. He was never supposed to win now, but he will very likely be the Republican nominee in 2016 and stands a good chance of winning the general election.
With the official entry of Rick Perry into the 2012 contest, the Republican field has crystallised; it’s hard to imagine any other major figures getting involved at this point. As I’ve written here before, Perry appeals to social conservative and economic conservatives alike, and with Michele Bachmann already competing for the former and Mitt Romney for the latter, there isn’t much space left.
All of this should suit Huntsman fine, although he probably hoped for a bit more national attention than he’ll likely receive before gracefully bowing out after either the South Carolina or Florida primary.In any case, he’ll be back.
Huntsman has private-sector experience from his father’s company, Huntsman Corporation, has served in four Presidential Administrations, and enjoys a reputation as a skilled conservative technocrat. As Governor, he significantly cut taxes while maintaining a balanced budget during his tenure. Utah was named the best-managed state in the country by the Pew Center on the States. Some of this was the result of unusual managerial practices, such as his experiment in reducing the work-week of state employees from five days to four longer ones, which, though recently rolled-back, appears to have been a success. His policies resulted in Utah being voted one the best states in the country to do business (another way of saying it has low taxes and few regulations) after his departure.
Huntsman’s broader appeal is that understands the limitations of his own party; he has in the past described the GOP as “devoid of ideas”, while his political right hand, John Weaver, talks about the liability of Republicans being seen as angry or cranky (as a former advisor to John McCain, Weaver would know).
As Governor, Huntsman supported civil-unions for same-sex couples, a striking position in a conservative state and one of the few occasions when a prominent Republican has been ahead of the curve on gay rights and not at the back end of it, dragging his feet and screaming blue murder. He has supported measures to curb global warming, also a position counter to GOP dogma (Perry, by contrast, has alleged that global warming is nothing more than a ruse proposed by Al Gore and others to cover up global cooling).
This does not make him the candidate for 2012, however. Republican voters are angry, Huntsman is not, and that would probably be enough to sink him on its own. He also served in the Obama Administration, as Ambassador to China, and shares a mutual respect and esteem with the President. These are crimes for which GOP primary voters are unlikely to forgive him just at present. His national name-recognition is also comparatively low – he’s been in Beijing for the last few years, rather than New Hampshire or Iowa – which is a particular handicap in the presidential primary of a party that goes with who it knows.
Give it four years, though. The Republicans won a major victory in 2010, two years after a Democratic tidal wave,in large part because voters were terrified for their economic future and in a blisteringly anti-incumbent mood. That fear persists, as does the anti-incumbent feeling, but it has managed to paper-over a grim reality that Huntsman himself acknowledges – despite the best efforts of Paul Ryan (or perhaps because of them), the Republican Party is still devoid of ideas.
For example, Medicare and Social Security are the third-rail of American politics; mucking with the former had devastating consequences for the Republican Congress of 2004/2005, and a failed attempt to privatise the latter made a lame-duck of the Bush Presidency around the same time, yet Republicans in debt-ceiling negotiations and budget talks have revisited both of these subjects while absolutely refusing to rescind the Bush tax cuts, which benefit the wealthiest Americans. Everyone associated with the debt-ceiling negotiations took a hit, but it seems at the moment that whoever wins the GOP nomination will inherit the party more tarnished by this process.
Although Obama is more vulnerable now than before, he has fared better than the Republicans coming out of the debt-ceiling deal, and maintains a high likability rating, which matters in re-election – voters give the benefit of the doubt to people they like. The result is that, for all its energy and anger, the GOP may emerge from 2012 having failed to win the White House or even improve its position in the House and Senate.
Unable to win on the anger of its base, the GOP would be forced to find a leader who could appeal to moderates, a standard-bearer not overburdened by dedication to an ideology twice-rejected in presidential contests or so culturally conservative that moderates are alarmed.
Enter Huntsman. Primary voters will know him because he’ll have run before, and will have demonstrated his ability to campaign professionally and to raise money. For GOP voters, he has tax-cutting and anti-regulation credentials, and has a libertarian streak that will serve him well on issues like gun control; his only real liability, as with Romney today, would be his Mormon faith, still regarded with some suspicion by many evangelical Christians. He will have been several years removed from his service to the Obama Administration, which will make things easier with Republicans, but will still be an expert on the relationship with China, an increasingly fraught political issue in the US.
For voters in the general, his cool rationalism and avowed dedication to finding policies that work, rather than meet a strict ideological code, could be a welcome relief in a Republican candidate, while his comparative flexibility on social issues (also in keeping with his libertarian streak) will be a real asset. He could very credibly run as a different kind of conservative.
Today is not Huntsman’s day, and he’s smart enough to know it; this race is about establishing his national profile. When he gives his concession speech after South Carolina or Florida, though, remember – this man, of all the candidates, is most likely to be the next Republican President of the United States.
I have a great many problems with this article and rather than send an e-mail I’ll put them here (any words in CAPS should be read as italicised)
Firstly this article ever so quickly assumes Obama is a two-term-President with scant arguments as to why. Comparing Obama’s approval levels to Congressional Republicans’ dismal approval levels due to the debt ceiling fight and inducing that this indicates Obama will be more popular than his eventual Presidential opponent is a clear error and not backed up by the polls. The Republican Presidential candidates have either remained the same in head to head match ups with the President or in fact gained ground this month.
An important number to watch is always how well the President is viewed on handling the economy and that number hit 57% disapproving and only 40% approving, an all-time low for the President http://tinyurl.com/economyalltimelow. Three months ago I would have bet that Obama wins re-election but each month that passes it looks less and less likely. This article does very little to reflect the reality that Obama will have a real fight on his hands in 2012. Discussing 2016 as if the next election has been taken care of is highly imprudent.
I also just want to take a bit of time to discuss why you’re completely wrong to suggest in any way that it is likely that the GOP will not improve its position in Congress in 2012.
The Republicans are very likely to lose perhaps a dozen or more seats in the House due to three factors; increased voter turnout due to the Presidential election, the anti-incumbent atmosphere that is greater than ever according to new polls, and the fact the GOP gains in 2010 represent a high water mark. However the current polls do not indication a ‘wave election’ like the last two mid-terms, it still remains a very long shot for the Democrats to take back the House. The race for the White House is difficult to predict, I struggle to think of recent Presidents with worse economic figures in front of them so it will be close whatever happens. But the Senate! The Senate is very likely see Republican gains move over to GOP control.
Of the thirty-three seats up for election next November twenty-three of them are currently held by members of the Democratic Senate Caucus as opposed to only ten Republican held seats. You may recall that these are seats that were HELD by Republicans in 2006 which was an awful election cycle for the GOP. Furthermore of the ten seats the GOP have up for election in 2012 eight of them are likely to be contested by incumbents (unless defeated in Primaries) and in stat-wide races this incumbency still equates a massive advantage. For the record the two Republican Senators stepping down are from Arizona and Texas where Obama lost last year by 8.5% and 11.8% respectively. On the other hand, of the twenty-three Democratic seats up for election six of them are retiring in 2012. The maths is not with them and it is clear that the Democrats are going to really struggle not to lose any of their seats, especially as five races are in states Obama lost in 2008 when he was at the height of his popularity.
So it is likely that the GOP will maintain control of the House and gain control of the Senate. Your article makes no mention of this and floats the possibility that Republicans may even make losses in Congress with nothing to back it up.
Your entire article then omits FOUR YEARS, jumping straight from the 2012 cycle to the 2016 cycle. You have completely overlooked the 2014 midterms. If Obama does win then it is likely to be a squeaker like 2004 or 200 and Obama will be in his 6th year most likely still battling a struggling economy but with a lot more grey hair. It will make perfect sense for the Republicans to run hard against Obama in 2014 just as it made perfect sense for them to do so in 2010 and perfect sense for Democrats to run hard against Bush in 2006. The 2014 mid-terms won’t be a time for moderates to assert themselves; it will be a time to obstruct the Obama agenda and this will feed into the 2016 Presidential Primaries. It may be the case that the general populace will be tired with the gridlock and with Obama off the ballot they will look to changing control of Congress but the fact is the American voter will most likely look to whether they feel the country is on the right or wrong track and then look to which party the President belongs to and punish or reward accordingly.
But focusing on the main thrust of your article, your hypothetical outlook for the 2016 Republican Primaries (assuming Obama wins a second term) overlooks one important recent trend and misunderstands the nature of the conservative Republican primary voters.
The trend; why would the GOP be “forced” to nominate a candidate not “overburdened by dedication to an ideology twice-rejected in presidential contests”? The Democrats lost in 1980 and in 1984 and yet nominated the liberal Dukakis in 1988. The Democrats were successful under the moderate Clinton in the 1990s but not so under the more liberal Al Gore and the Massachusetts Liberal (capital M, capital L) John Kerry. Yet when faced with a choice between ANOTHER Clinton and a liberal seeming Obama they opted for the latter. I won’t argue the toss about whether or not Obama was a liberal during the campaign but you cannot claim that the Democrats were FORCED to do anything. They did what they felt like doing and so will Republicans in 2016.
I would also argue that whatever the Republican Presidential Campaign of 2012 is it will not be the based entirely on the same ideology as the Republican Presidential Campaign of 2008. The Tea Party of today, in part formed from a frustration with the Republicans of the noughties (of which John McCain was a prominent figure), will ensure a different rhetoric, different talking points and different policies from the previous go round.
As far as many Republican primary voters are concerned John McCain represented the far ‘left’ of the Republican party (this is a man who flirted with joining the Democrats in the early 2000s, who John Kerry wanted as his Vice Presidential candidate and who initially wanted the Democrat Joe Lieberman as his running mate in 2008). Many in the tea party and on the right of the GOP blame this MODERATE for losing them the election and cite the fact that only when Sarah Palin made a big splash at the Republican Convention did the McCain ticket ever reach parity with the Obama-Biden ticket. If Romney wins the nomination and loses the general it is likely he will be retrospectively painted as the moderate choice and the GOP should have been a candidate of the Perry, Bachman or Palin mould if they wanted to repeat the victories of George W. Bush.
Perhaps my biggest problem with this article however is the assumption that the Republican Party will somehow feel chastised and change after a Republican defeat in 2012. Barack Obama won with the biggest Democratic Party share of the vote since 1964 and it only took months for the Republicans to came back stronger, louder and more conservative than ever. If the GOP lose in 2016 they won’t look down at their feet and admit they were wrong to adopt an uncompromising stance on taxes, spending, Obamacare, the EPA, abortion, gay marriage and the rest. They will blame Obama for stealing the election, they will say they weren’t steadfast enough or that they didn’t talk about ‘values’ enough and the Republicans still in Congress will (probably successfully) block the President at every turn.
American Political parties don’t do Clause IV moments. Clinton is credited with trying to shift the party to the centre but much of this is retrospective, before the massive Democratic mid-term defeat of 1994 Clinton pursued a fairly liberal agenda and wanted to pass a comprehensive healthcare plan much more audacious than Obamacare. For the most part American parties don’t radically change course all the much, they represent their 35%-40% of the electorate and they fight over the middle and sometimes they’re up and sometimes they’re down but mostly due to what issues are particularly pressing to Americans at the time. The Republican party will still be Americas conservative party in 2016, but if you think that they will turn to Huntsman running as a moderate with slightly liberal tendencies on social issues then why not write that they might as well turn up to President Obama’s farewell speech at the Democratic convention and chant “4 More Years”.
If this article is making the case for Hunstman in 2016 I feel I’ve demonstrated why the Republican party won’t be too receptive to the Hunstman’s message but here are some reasons the Republican party won’t be receptive to Hunstsman as a candidate.
Primary voters will NOT know him in 2016! Your article straight away says he will not win this time around and is not meant to. This we agree on. However Huntsman isn’t just going to lose in 2012 he’s going lose badly. Just look at the Real Clear Politics average for the Republican Presidential Nominations fight. http://tinyurl.com/realclearpoliticsaverage Huntsman has less than half the polling support of New Gringrich whose campaign has slowly imploded over the last 2-3 months and Herman Cain who is… Herman Cain. At the Ames straw poll Huntsman (though not officially contesting) got 0.4% and only 69 votes while Romney (also not officially contesting) got over 8 times that amount. Rick Perry got over 10 times that amount as a WRITE IN candidate. Hunstman got only 34 more votes than Thaddeus McCotter who wasn’t even invited to the Fox News debate due to lack of support.
If the Republican voters of 2016 remember Jon Huntsman they will remember him as the guy who performed so badly but didn’t drop out of the race because he had the ability to self-finance his own death march towards a <2% showing in Iowa and <12% showing in New Hampshire in January 2012.
Running in the previous election doesn’t get you name recognition in the next one. Many followers of US politics might know Congressmen Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, Senators Sam Brownback and Fred Thompson and Governor Tommy Thompson but despite their meagre runs in 2008 they are not the name on the lips of Republican activists in Iowa and New Hampshire today. The only two serious contenders for the Republican nomination this time round who gained name recognition from the last cycle were Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee and it is no coincidence that these are the guys that (along with John McCain of course) actually WON primary states in 2008; 11 and 8 respectively. Between them they represent over 40% of the total Republican primary vote in 2008. If Huntsman represents 2% of the total Republican vote for 2012 I will be surprised.
Perhaps, like Huckabee, Huntsman could get a Fox News show and make his case for considered conservatism to an audience of millions to raise his profile. However Rudy Giuliani, who led the polls for much of the elongated Presidential primaries of 2008, had huge name recognition but this didn’t translate to primary wins due to his perceived liberal leanings (which he shares with Huntsman).
In your hypothetical 2016 where Huntsman is doing well you suggest his record on tax-cutting, anti-regulation and gun control as reasons the GOP will like him but that does not stand any empirical test as they do NOT like him today even with these positions. As for his religion, if Romney wins the nomination and loses then Hunstman’s Mormonism will be an even bigger liability to him. The Republicans will definitely be wary of the prospect of nominating two Mormons in a row when the first one lost. Huntsman’s service to the Obama administration will be nothing but an albatross in 2016 as Obama (as a two-term Democratic President) will be even more reviled by the GOP. His record of experience with will count for very little. Right now the US owes China close to $1 Trillion and the fact he speaks mandarin and his tax-cutting, anti-regulation record appears to count for nothing in this race, what makes you think it will help him in 2016?
Finally what you overlook is the field in 2016. In less than a year’s time we’ll all be hearing about potential Vice Presidential Candidates for the Republican nominee, many of whom will be eyeing the main prize themselves if Obama wins a second term. I can list Marco Rubio, Scott Brown, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, John Thune, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie plus a great many more who will at least consider running for the nomination in four years’ time if Obama wins. Also the Republicans are just one party, Joe Biden will be seventy-four at the swearing in ceremony in 2017 and most likely will not run and the list for Democratic candidates perhaps headed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo or Virginia Senator Mark Warner will be long and have some very impressive names on it too.
Just think, five years before the 2008 Presidential election Barack Obama was one of fifteen candidates running for the Democratic Primary for the Illinois senate seat. Predicting the winner of that election as far out as this article is predicting the 2016 election would have been foolish.
I think you’ve figured out the Huntsman strategy, get back from China, get your name out there this time round and be next in line the following cycle. However he’s clearly not making an impression on this race that will still be there in four years’ time. He’s too mild mannered to do what Romney did which is to spend four years attacking Barack Obama thereby keeping his profile high. He’s not going to draw the ratings to Fox News so Roger Ailes won’t be offering him a job. He really won’t like losing as bad as he will in a few months’ time and he won’t want to repeat it and neither will his financial backers (you can’t self-fund your entire campaign).
If Huntsman was the candidate he is on paper the candidate he is in reality and if US political parties behaved like political scientists like to think parties behave then maybe this article could have a point to make. But neither of these are true and so the simplistic conclusions arrived at here clearly fanciful speculation. However if you want to bookmark my comments and laugh very loudly at me in January 2017 when President Huntsman is sworn in I will accept I was mistaken.
PS
Regarding Bush's attempts at reform of Social Security, this occurred in the 109th Congress which ran from 2005-2006 (and 3 days in 2007) and not 2004/2005. I would also argue that it was his handling of Hurricane Katrina and his subsequent plummeting in the polls, dissolving any of his remaining political capital on domestic issues that left him a lame duck President at home. But perhaps another time.
Also, regarding your claim the line-up of candidates has crystallised, if I had to bet I would probably agree however there are rumours that Paul Ryan and Chris Christie are exploring their options. http://tinyurl.com/paulryanrunning http://tinyurl.com/christierunning
Thanks for the time and thought you put into this, James. It’s a lengthy reply and we have a number of differences of opinion, so you’ll forgive me if I stick to a few key points.
– I do indeed assume an Obama victory in 2012 and you’re right to say I don’t offer much to support it. That’s for a future piece – wanted to stay close to Huntsman this time. For the moment, a few key points – voters still believe Obama inherited a problem rather than created it, which helps him, and his personal likability rating is significantly higher than GW Bush’s at a comparable point in his presidency.
– My sense is that the legislative election will actually be a bit of a wash, in spite of the anti-incumbency feeling. I doubt Dems will win back the House and don’t think the GOP will make massive gains in the Senate, where incumbency is virtually unassailable. Again, subject for a future piece, here or elsewhere.
– My bet, and I concede it is that, is that the GOP will gravitate toward a Western-style Republican (libertarian, low tax, anti-reg) in ’16 because he’s socially conservative enough for so-called Main Street Republicans (and certainly libertarian enough for them) and he’s sound enough on tax/finance for Wall Street Republicans, and, again, Republican voters will know him, and they tend to pick last time’s silver or bronze medalist (now watch them select Perry and completely counter my point).
Again, my thanks for the time and thoughtfulness, James. Much obliged.
I’d like to thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. My comments are lengthy as this is slightly born out of my concern that your ‘answers’ are too brief and I feel the need to back up my claims where I can. But I shall take on the points you make.
– It is true that many voters still blame George Bush for the economic mess but this inevitably going to be less and less the case. Every year that goes by the President is seen by more and more Americans to ‘own’ the problems of the economy. Wherever the blames lies today, come November 2012 Obama will have an ever greater share. And even for those who lay the blame solely at George Bush’s feet, Obama ran as the guy to fix the economic mess and it will not be difficult for many Americans to conclude that he has not done so regardless of who started it. Furthermore the 2012 election will be about the future and not about autumn of 2008 and as I said before Americans rate Obama poorly for his efforts handling the economy so far, it is likely they will not be confident he will bring about prosperity next term.
You place far too much faith in Obama’s likeability. When you look at Obama’s job approval ratings and how he scores on “understands the problems of people like you” questions and enthusiasm among Democrats, the President is in real trouble. The economic forecasts are grim and I think every month the likelihood of an Obama re-election diminishes regardless of his likeability. I argue that this is because how likable a President is or how much you’d enjoy a drink with him is much less of a factor when unemployment has been this high for this long. Beers and barbeques with a President are great, jobs are better.
I find it interesting that you base your 2012 prediction on one piece of evidence alone in the face of so much data to the contrary. But perhaps what I find most interesting about why you chose to cite Obama being more liked than Bush is that it is just not true. Obama’s favourability has been consistently lower than George Bush’s at comparable points in their Presidency since the end of their first year in office. Half way down the page of this link you can see the graphics that will make it clear http://tinyurl.com/Presidential-Favourability . I concede this might have a lot to do with 9/11 and the War on Terror but I still advise you only use facts that are actually factual. If I have misunderstood the claim you were making or you have different data do please inform me.
I personally believe the Presidential race is a toss-up right now and I imagine Obama’s path to re-election will become apparent when the eventual Republican nominee is chosen and it will be that individual’s failings providing a bigger problem for the electorate than Obama’s that see the President win a second term. The evidence you cite in this article and your response are limited or inaccurate but I do look forward to your own, more substantive, analysis on his chances in future articles.
– It is a small point but your claim that Senate incumbency is virtually unassailable belies the fact that enough seats do change to change party control. Looking at all the senate elections since 2000 there is on average 13% of incumbents running lose. In the last three mid-terms incumbents losses number 2 in 2010, 5 in 2008 and 6 in 2006 which was enough to change control of the Senate. Also we do not know how many Senators will be successful in winning their party’s primary which will change things. At any rate Larry Sabato currently rates all the Republican seats up for election in 2012 as between safe and lean Republican but rates 6 Democratic seats as Toss-Up and 1 Democratic seat as LIKELY R. Remember Republicans don’t need to make “massive gains” in the Senate, just 4 seats (3 if they control the White House) to flip the chamber.
– As for Huntsman (the main focus of your article) I am curious to know what your ‘bet’ is based on because there is scant evidence for your claims. When has it taken only two Presidential electoral defeats to make a party moderate their choice of candidate? In all but one occasion two Presidential defeats has had apparent no moderating impact on the candidate selection. After losing with Gore and Kerry the Democrats nominate the anti-war candidate Obama in 2008. After losing with George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole they nominate the SON of the former in 2000. After losing with Carter and Mondale the Democrats choose Michael Dukakis. After losing with Nixon and Barry Goldwater the Republicans nominate Nixon AGAIN. I concede that Carter might be the exception being seen as more moderate than Humphrey or McGovern in 1976. However since 1960 a party has had to nominate a candidate after two successive defeats 5 times and on one occasion it was the SON of one of the losing candidates and another occasion it was the exact same person and only once can I see a move to the centre. You could point to Clinton in 1992 being an example of the Democrats prioritising electability over ideology but this was after THREE straight losses by the Democrats and many big names of the Democratic Party choose not to run. You appear to be giving the primary voters far too much credit for prioritising electability.
You also misunderstand the primary and caucus electorate and the process by which candidate are selected. Even if many leading figures of the party agree that a change is needed it comes down the voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Every single Republican nominee for President in the era of the modern primary as we know it today has won at least two out of these three races.
There was an interesting article on Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog which showed how Republican primary and caucus goers in 2008 identified themselves. The break down between those identifying themselves as moderate/liberal and those identifying themselves as conservatives goes as follows for the 3 crucial states; Iowa 12%-88%, New Hampshire 45%-55% and South Carolina 31%-69%. Clearly the most moderate path is through New Hampshire and South Carolina which still requires you to win a state that has more than 2 conservative voters for every moderate or liberal voter. What you’re suggesting has to overcome this very high hurdle.
Also it should be noted that in 2016 Obama would not be able to run again and it is unlikely Biden would seek the nomination. So with a Democratic primary battle happening, voters in open primaries on the left will be voting for their choice of Democratic nominee and not vote for the left leaning candidate of the Republicans (there is evidence to suggests that this helped McCain in New Hampshire in 2000 when Al Gore looked certain to win). So the average Republican primary voter will be even MORE conservative in 2016 than 2012.
For a great many of these voters religion plays a large part in their political outlook, no candidate who says anything other than “I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman” is going to get the nomination for a good long while, let alone 5 years’ time. On so many levels the Republican party over the past 30 years has become increasingly more conservative. Your ‘bet’ assumes this trend will reverse and you offer absolutely nothing to base this on.
Finally your poor analysis of this primary is badly informing your ideas about 2016. Jon Huntsman will not get silver or bronze. Yes there is a clear trend in the GOP that the candidate ‘next in line’ wins the nomination but with a top tier of Romney, Perry and Bachman and whoever the eventual nominee picks as his or her Vice Presidential candidate thrown into the mix as well, what on earth is making you think Jon Huntsman will be ‘next in line’ for 2016? Again Huntsman’s Real Clear Politics polling average is 2.2% nationally, he is not contesting Iowa and as far as I am aware he has not scraped double digits in any New Hampshire Primary poll unlike Romney, Perry, Paul, Bachman (plus others) when that is the state where he intends to make his stand. Republicans will not know him well in 2016; according to Gallup he currently has the lowest name recognition of all the mainstream candidates at running at 38%, 7 points behind Herman Cain and 13 points behind Rick Santorum http://www.gallup.com/poll/election.aspx . I suppose my overall point is that if you have already put money on Huntsman winning a single state this time round, be prepared to lose it.
But thank you for taking the time to respond. I look forward to your future articles.