Marathon Pundit: South Carolina paper enthusiastic about Jon Huntsman

Thursday, September 01, 2011

South Carolina paper enthusiastic about Jon Huntsman

Capitol Reef Nat'l Park, Utah

Political staffers aren't known for their quiescence, which is why it's not really big news that some of them have left Jon Huntsman's presidential campaign, but Politico thinks it's a prominent story--which is why that publication is increasingly irrelevant.

Meanwhile, Huntsman sat down with the editorial board of South Carolina's largest paper and Cindi Ross Scoppe of The State likes what she hears from him:

On the surface, Jon Huntsman's prescription for righting the nation's fiscal woes is standard Republican fare: cut spending, rein in entitlements, reform the tax code and pass a balanced-budget amendment. But dig in a little deeper — ask whether he insists on the balanced-budget amendment that the House passed this summer, the one that goes far beyond what he and nearly all of the nation's other governors have lived with, undermining majority-rule by turning tax policy over to a minority in either house of the Congress — and you hear one of the essential differences between the former Utah governor and U.S. ambassador to China and the rest of the GOP presidential field.

"Listen, this is going to come down to a negotiation," Mr. Huntsman said during a visit with our editorial board on Monday. "During the debt-ceiling debate, we got people in their respective corners kind of firing at each other, not willing to make a deal and move on. At some point you've got to get the work of the nation done. And I bring that perspective from having been a governor.

"People elect you to get things done. You just can't stay in your respective corner, fire rhetorically at the other side and expect the business of the nation to move forward and the marketplace to respond positively. It's not going to happen."

As with most of the things that distinguish Mr. Huntsman from the other Republican presidential candidates, I can easily remember a time when this perspective would have been unremarkable. What serious candidate for president, or for governor, or for the Congress, didn't understand that negotiation is essential to a functioning republic? Or to running a business, or surviving a marriage or raising a family or living anywhere other than alone on a deserted island, for that matter.