If you’re not familiar with the term RINO it means Republican in Name Only. There never was a better example of that than Gov. Jon Huntsman. Why this man is running for president as Republican may be one of life’s great mysteries. Some believe that Huntsman is a liberal plant. While this may seem far-fetched, Huntsman’s appearance on TV Sunday sure went a long way to give credence to that view.
Huntsman gave yet another demonstration of his anti-conservative views on ABC Television’s This Week program Sunday morning. A partial transcript of Huntsman’s comments can be found at This Week Huntsman Transcript.
Jake Tapper, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour, didn’t need any interviewing gymnastics to get Huntsman to express his disdain for the other presidential hopefuls. Just one of Huntsman’s comments, aimed at the Tea Party, shows his true colors:
HUNTSMAN: Right now, this country is crying out for a sensible middle ground. This is a center-right country; I am a center-right candidate. Right now, we’ve got people on the fringes.
Wikileaks exposed documents that showed Huntsman deeply involved in the Obama administration’s far-East policies, including a number which are anything but conservative. One example is a Huntsman cable stating “U.S. educational offerings must be made more attractive to Chinese students who increasingly see advanced degrees in China as good or better than U.S. degrees.”
U.S. students are being edged out by foreign students in increasingly frightening numbers, the slumping dollar and trade imbalance put Asian students at a distinct advantage. Why would we want to encourage Chinese students to take the seats of our own citizens, take that knowledge back to China and then clobber us with the fruits of our own education system? Is this the kind of thinking we want in the White House? We have that already.
As governor Huntsman promoted programs intended to reduce carbon emissions, including the Western Climate Initiative, which included six states and three Canadian provinces, had a cap-a-trade provision and encouraged fuel-efficient vehicles, renewable energy use and energy conservation. He also appeared in an advertisement sponsored by Environmental Defense, where he said, “Now it’s time for Congress to act by capping greenhouse-gas pollution.”
Huntsman as Governor backed bills providing civil rights protections to gays and lesbians, and threatened to veto a measure repealing in-state college tuition for the children of illegal immigrants.
In 2007, when asked about a healthcare mandate, Huntsman said, “I’m comfortable with a requirement – you can call it whatever you want, but at some point we’re going to have to get serious about how we deal with this issue”.
Huntsman has repeatedly stated he is in favor of medicinal marijuana use, despite the uber-corrupt system in his fellow western state of California where reports state that nearly 70 percent of all persons receiving medicinal marijuana are either completely healthy or have a condition that marijuana has no influence on.
Jon Huntsman is no conservative. Surely he does have a few conservative views, but his public life is rife with examples of left-wing views and actions. While in favor of school vouchers, being pro-life and a gun rights proponent might check a few boxes, it doesn’t square with his other liberal leanings.
Now Huntsman is pounding his fellow 2012 hopefuls, a move that will do nothing to help him in a Republican primary. Perhaps Huntsman knows this and he’s not really in this race to win it, but rather to seek a little attention for a career that appears to have peaked as the Ambassador to China. A relatively young man, with boat-loads of money, this run has all the signs of an attention-getting hobby of the idle rich as he has little more chance of winning a Republican primary than Chuck Schumer.
Jon, go home. Take your millions and build a hospital in Utah specializing in serving illegal aliens. Hand out some medicinal marijuana and buy green cars for your fellow citizens. Why not create “The Jon Huntsman Scholarship for Asian students” With no chance to win, all you’re doing is pulling down the true conservatives to feed your own narcissism. You’re sucking up the oxygen that conservatives need to contrast with the liberals all the while showing just how similar to Obama you are.