"Obama’s campaign manager: Huntsman was biggest threat"

[applegrove]

Obama’s campaign manager: Huntsman was biggest threat

By Thomas Burr at the Salt Lake Tribune

"SNIP...................................


Washington • President Barack Obama’s campaign manager said Tuesday that he saw former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as the biggest potential threat to the president’s re-election.

Jim Messina said Huntsman’s appeal to moderate voters could have dug into the Democratic president’s margin with that swath of Americans, whom Obama handily took to win a second term.

"We were honest about our concerns about Huntsman," Messina said at an event sponsored by Politico. "I think Huntsman [as Republican nominee] would have been a tough general election campaign."

Senior Obama adviser David Plouffe had expressed such concern even before Utah’s former governor launched his failed presidential bid, with one journalist noting that a Huntsman candidacy made Plouffe a "wee bit queasy."


...................................SNIP"

[JI7]

1. people like him have no chance in the Repubican Primary

they got rid of Lugar who would have easily won and IS a conservative. but because he isn't like the crazy teabagger racist types they think he is a liberal.

[rzemanfl]

2. Please don't throw me into that briar patch. Please!

[struggle4progress]

20. +

[Still Sensible]

3. Agreed. They could call him that and

it was probably true in that batshit field... but he had no chance whatsoever to get enough votes in the primaries.

[mzteaze]

4. I could see this

I didn't know much about Huntsman but was curious about him after seeing him on the Colbert Report.

[aaaaaa5a]

5. They had nothing to worry about. Sane people don't win GOP Primaries.

Huntsman literally could not even compete in Iowa because the GOP is so crazy there. And even in NH I don't think he finished better than 3rd. He clearly was never going to be a factor in SC. And there you have it. Case closed!

[JanetLovesObama]

6. I really, really, like Huntsman

a lot. Which made me feel very uneasy about him running against President Obama. Thankfully, the ignorant republicans didn't like him. He will never be a Republican President. If he really wants to become President of the USA he must dump the neanderthal party and come on over to the party of and for the people. The party of Barack Hussein Obama !!!!

[Curmudgeoness]

7. I knew this as soon as I started paying attention to the GOP primaries.

Huntsman was sane, or appeared that way. He was moderate and would have pulled a lot of the people who were put off by the batshit of the far right wing that we were subjected to.

I said at the time that I thought he was the only one who could beat Obama, if any of them could.

Aren't we lucky that the Repugs don't have a clue!

[ProudProgressiveNow]

33. +1 nt

[JohnnyLib2]

8. Wow, that's a not-so-subtle putdown along with the content.

And his reasoning makes sense to me.

[libdem4life]

9. And his Mormon religion would not have mattered. Republicans with class...a vanishing breed.

[rocktivity]

10. Well, why do you think that one of the first things Obama did after he won in '08

Last edited Mon Aug 31, 2015, 04:13 PM - Edit history (4)

was outsource Huntsman to China? To put him into the "enemy" administration and out of the public eye.

This became his next claim to fame, allegedly by a Ron Paul supporter but traced back to the Huntsman campaign:

Obama was lucky in the sense that Huntsman made the Rethugs queasy, too -- as moderates and Mormons go, they preferred Romney for some reason.


rocktivity

[cecilfirefox]

11. Now, that is some racist bullshit. nt

[MADem]

12. I agree. Smart, charming, and he appeared reasonable. He also had knockout daughters.

And of course, he was caucasian, which REALLY appeals to some people.

There are people who hated Money BooBoo but voted for him because of his pale visage. Huntsman was much more likeable; he could have caused trouble.

Good thing he was a poor panderer!

[northoftheborder]

13. That's what I thought also. The only sane one of the bunch.

[madrchsod]

14. i knew he would have been the biggest threat but

the ultra right in the republican party and their backers would never accept a moderate republican running for president.

after all obama and huntsman respected each other

[Midwestern Democrat]

15. Huntsman would have been DOA in Ohio - an unapologetic free trader who saw nothing wrong with our

trade situation with China. In contrast, Romney talked very tough on China. Since Ohio was the main battgleground for most of the campaign, I don't think Huntsman would have been all that wise of a choice for the GOP.

[pangaia]

16. I always had a very distasteful feeling about Ron Paul.

I actually agreed with a few of his positions, very few. However, he just painted everything with this one huge single color brush without any nuance of color whatsoever, without any thought to the consequences. But even aside from some of his extremist, too simplistic positions, there was just something...I don't know..just something...dirty, about the man. Something repulsive to me about him. And this ad shows it perfectly, whether or not it came directly from his campaign.

[coalition_unwilling]

17. Great minds think alike. I said the same thing repeatedly on DU

during the Rape-publi-scum primary season and subsequently when it became clear that Huntsman would get no traction whatsoever among the kooks and rapscallions of the Rape-publi-scum Party.

I was worried about Huntsman and Huckabee and neither one's candidacy went anywhere.

[Third Doctor]

18. Huntsman was far too moderate to appeal to the GOP's nutty base.

Working with Obama and actually becoming a part of his administration was not acceptable to them. That's how deep their hatred goes.

[smorkingapple]

19. Guys he had no shot. No charisma, legacy baby, very conservative track record

He flamed out because he had no appeal even if he had tried the fire breathing right winger route. He had no ability to connect to normal Americans. And no one gives a fuck about Utah. At least Romney had the east coast gov track record.

Only reason Messina and Plouffe were worried was cause he was in the administration which would make it tough to attack him plus he didn't have the amount of oppo research Romney had

[Lex]

22. He seemed the most reasonable out of

the rest of the nuts running for the GOP nom. Not that that means he was in fact reasonable.

[Sherman A1]

29. Just heard him speak a month ago and

he was indeed reasonable and exceptionally positive. I too saw him as the only one of the GOP field that could have beaten the President, however I also knew that he would never get far in the primaries. HE is one to watch for the next round.

[Hippo_Tron]

23. Messina said he was the biggest threat, not that he would've won

Huntsman was the biggest threat that they had. That's still not saying much.

[grantcart]

24. Messina is just playing mind games with the Republicans.

Once Obama appointed Huntsman ambassador to China he could no longer be a viable candidate.


How would he argue that PBO was unfit to be President if he agreed to serve under him?


How would he argue that he had radically different policies if he was in the administration?


Governor Huntsman might have been formidable. Ambassador Huntsman not a chance in hell.

[Hippo_Tron]

25. He served as Ambassador to China, not Treasury Secretary

In a general election you don't have to argue that your opponent is unfit to be President. You just have to argue that you can do a better job, and in the case of 2012 a better job on the economy in particular.

The problem is that in a primary, you do have to argue that your opponent is the anti-christ and is unfit to be President. That didn't serve Huntsman very well.

[grantcart]

31. Unfortunately Huntsman had to go through the Primary first.

He never had a chance, and I assume that he was looking at 2016.


In a General Election an argument based on comparative advantages will not win against the general tendancy to stay with what you know. You have to produce a convincing argument the current administration is in fact damaged goods an argument that Huntsman would be unable to make.

[Cosmocat]

32. Not for nothing

but, Romney passed Obamacare before Obama passed Obamacare.

And, he campaigned HARD on repealing it.

[Lex]

21. The teabaggers will be the end of the Republican Party with their purity tests and extreme ideas

that DO NOT appeal to most of America.

[davidn3600]

30. Not even Reagan would pass their conservative litmus test today

They refuse to stand back and see how far off the deep end they really have gone.

[Drunken Irishman]

26. I think Obama would've defeated Huntsman by a wider margin than Romney...

He would've been too conservative on some issues to attract a huge segment of the moderate vote to win (something Obama won) and too moderate on others to attract massive amounts of the conservative vote. Mitt Romney was kicking Huntsman's ass in Utah during the primaries (before we had our primaries, Huntsman dropped out, but the polls suggested a huge Romney win), which tells you everything you need to know about his chances among the conservative. My guess, had Huntsman wrapped up the nomination, we would have seen a viable third-party candidate from the right taking away votes from Huntsman - which would've killed him in a great deal of states.

Plus, if you think Romney lacked charisma ... Huntsman was even worse. The guy is a snooze fest.

[FarPoint]

27. I also saw Huntsman as the biggest threat...

based on he being the most polished of the GOP Primary lot. Who knows what he may do in 2016. If the GOP happens to take their head of of their assess...we could face Huntsman.

[BlueMTexpat]

28. As an OP in at least one other DU thread points out,

Romney's voting numbers were actually much better in many places than McCain's were in 2008.

That is because Romney overwhelmingly got the GOP "base" (never was a term more accurate) of RWNJ votes as well as semi-moderate Reps and "Independents" (I put that in parens b/c most Is, in my experience, are Rs by another name).

In the wholly improbable scenario where Huntsman might have won out over the Klown Kar of Kandidates to be the R nominee, he would never have gotten anywhere near the same general election numbers with the GOP base as Mittens without veering as far to the right as Mitt did. Huntsman may have had too much integrity (it wouldn't be hard to find someone with more integrity than Mitt, after all) to do that and that fact would have doomed him overall.

That said, Huntsman only looked sane in comparison to what else the Rs had on offer. He is NOT anyone that true Dems should have wanted to see as President. After all, having an R in the WH would have meant a whole slew of Rs in the Cabinet and, most of all, conservative nominees for USSC justices.

Never forget that. It's never "just" the man/woman; it's the whole entourage/baggage/environment that s/he comes with. Today's Rs are saddled with the crazy faction. No matter how reasonable/palatable the person at the top may seem, that person is fully beholden to the RWNJs. Plouffe knows this better than I do.

Methinks that the Prez's campaign manager is just having a little fun with the press.