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The GOP's front runners: Bad and worse (George Will pegs Huntsman as most principled conservative).
Washington Post ^ | December 2, 2011 | George Will

Posted on 12/02/2011 9:53:00 PM PST by St. Louis Conservative

(snip)

Jon Huntsman inexplicably chose to debut as the Republican for people who rather dislike Republicans, but his program is the most conservative. He endorses Paul Ryan’s budget and entitlement reforms. (Gingrich denounced Ryan’s Medicare reform as “right-wing social engineering.”) Huntsman would privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Gingrich’s benefactor). Huntsman would end double taxation on investment by eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends. (Romney would eliminate them only for people earning less than $200,000, who currently pay just 9.3 percent of them.) Huntsman’s thorough opposition to corporate welfare includes farm subsidies. (Romney has justified them as national security measures — food security, somehow threatened. Gingrich says opponents of ethanol subsidies are “big-city” people hostile to farmers.) Huntsman considers No Child Left Behind, the semi-nationalization of primary and secondary education, “an unmitigated disaster.” (Romney and Gingrich support it. Gingrich has endorsed a national curriculum.) Between Ron Paul’s isolationism and the faintly variant bellicosities of the other six candidates stands Huntsman’s conservative foreign policy, skeptically nuanced about America’s need or ability to control many distant developments.

Romney might not be a Dewey. Gingrich might stop being (as Churchill said of John Foster Dulles) a bull who carries his own china shop around with him. But both are too risky to anoint today.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections; US: Utah
KEYWORDS: huntsman; jonhuntsman; libertarians; medicalmarijuana; mittromney; newt; newtgingrich; obama; rino; romney; utah
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I’m sympathetic to the personal challenges Will has kindly shared with the World, but I have yet to experience the insightful, political ‘Wow’ he’s alleged to convey. Perhaps my cynicism has eclipsed the beltway rumors.


21 posted on 12/02/2011 10:49:50 PM PST by Gene Eric (Save a pretzel for the gas jets.)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

So have I.

Suprising.


22 posted on 12/02/2011 10:52:50 PM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: nathanbedford
George Will was certain the nominee would be either Mitch Daniels or Tim Pawlenty only a few month ago.

It's all academic. Obama will be CIC until Jan 20, 2017.

23 posted on 12/02/2011 11:06:57 PM PST by newzjunkey (Republicans will find a way to reelect Obama and Speaker Pelosi.)
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To: St. Louis Conservative
George Will realizes (as I have only come to recently) that Jon Huntsman is THE option for conservatives at this point.

Just out of curiosity, how is a guy who calls conservatives "anti-science" and refers to himself, not as the conservative, but as the "center-right" candidate, somehow become "THE option" for conservatives ?

I'm not even knocking him for working in the Obama administration, I'm more curious how someone who portrays themselves as a moderate (his words, not mine) and "center-right" or "right of center" (again his words not mine) becomes the option for people who are conservative ?

Even better, how is he supposed to pull this off after insulting conservatives directly ?

24 posted on 12/02/2011 11:33:11 PM PST by Sonny M ("oderint dum metuant")
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To: St. Louis Conservative

George Will needs to take his meds and eat his soup.


25 posted on 12/03/2011 12:07:42 AM PST by jonrick46 (2012 can't come soon enough.)
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To: jonrick46

George Will has on occasion seemed like a Conservative only due to the contrast from the 5 Leftist usually arrayed against him. He’s an inside the beltway idea of a ‘Conservative’. Will is a useful idiot and pure Statist/Prog.


26 posted on 12/03/2011 1:28:42 AM PST by iopscusa (El Vaquero. (SC Lowcountry Cowboy))
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To: St. Louis Conservative

I’m delighted that you have decided to support Jon Huntsman.

Ultimately, this is going to come down to whether we want to ‘vent’ or whether we want to ‘win’.

Romney is utterly vulnerable against Obama for reasons that the Huntsman campaign is already exploiting and are well documented on this site. Even Newt’s staunchest fan would admit that he brings a fair amount of baggage to the table.

When you brush away all the image stuff, when you brush away the tangential fluff, and you get down to a candidate’s record and his policy positions, Huntsman seems the wisest choice every time.


27 posted on 12/03/2011 3:35:18 AM PST by Tredegar (Huntsman 2012 - Qualifications, Experience and Expertise, MATTER)
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To: Sonny M

Huntsman has tried to eschew the moderate label. He isn’t too keen on any ‘label’ that the media might bestow. If anything, he is trying to portray himself (accurately as his record shows) as a consistent conservative. Have a look at the ads his campaign have created against Romney’s flip-flops, and the ad that his Super PAC broadcast in New Hampshire. They’re all about being a conservative.

Comparing his policy positions and past to that of Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, it is difficult not to conclude that Will, on this topic at least, has a point.

As for your other point, if you felt insulted, then I don’t blame you for not warming to the guy. I didn’t take his comments that way. I agree with his basic premise that the Republican Party cannot allow itself to be painted by the Democrats and the media, as the ‘anti-science’ party. Because that’s the spin they are taking. Now THAT I find insulting.


28 posted on 12/03/2011 3:44:47 AM PST by Tredegar (Huntsman 2012 - Qualifications, Experience and Expertise, MATTER)
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To: nathanbedford
Nathan,

George Will has squandered our patience for years now as conservatives, I don't even listen to him anymore. His last great call before anyone saw it ( 3 or 4 yrs before it happened if my memory is correct) was that GM was going to go broke, not Europe. Funny thing is Europe is their now...

29 posted on 12/03/2011 4:01:36 AM PST by taildragger (( Palin / Mulally 2012 ))
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To: St. Louis Conservative

This is why I stopped reading George Will long ago.


30 posted on 12/03/2011 4:26:29 AM PST by broken_arrow1 (I regret that I have but one life to give for my country - Nathan Hale "Patriot")
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Years back Will was the one eyed king in the valley of the blind. There were no other “conservative” writers around and he looked like Reagan. Now he just looks like .... well George Will a man willing to make a fool of himself to meet a deadline.


31 posted on 12/03/2011 4:38:38 AM PST by jmaroneps37 (Conservatism is truth. Liberalism is lies.)
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To: St. Louis Conservative
George Will realizes (as I have only come to recently) that Jon Huntsman is THE option for conservatives at this point.

No.

Jon Huntsman’s Love Letters (to Obama & the Clintons)

Huntsman: Climate Change Has Established Scientists Associated With It

Jon Huntsman's Cap and Trade, Stimulus Support and Individual Mandate Past Catches Up to Him

Huntsman in 2009: Stimulus "Probably Wasn't Big Enough"

32 posted on 12/03/2011 4:44:37 AM PST by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: newzjunkey
Re: Your tagline...

With FReepers like you, O will be elected for life. We need to go out and DEFEAT the MARXIST. I'm not a Huntsman supporter, but if it's him or O, I'llvote him.

33 posted on 12/03/2011 4:55:26 AM PST by ExCTCitizen (Cain/West 2012....what would the RACISTS LIBERALS say???)
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To: Army Air Corps

Also, Huntsman’s admitted strategy in New Hampshire is to get Democratic voters to raid the primary and vote for him.


34 posted on 12/03/2011 4:55:29 AM PST by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Will’s been in Washington DC so long he’s become addicted to the Kool-Aid. No better way to get invited to parties on the Beltway than to bash conservatives.


35 posted on 12/03/2011 5:03:54 AM PST by kenmcg (How)
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To: newzjunkey

Bull.


36 posted on 12/03/2011 5:42:00 AM PST by Recovering_Democrat
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To: St. Louis Conservative

I don’t have a problem with Huntsman’s views. Unfortunately Huntsman has made it clear he has a problem with my views.


37 posted on 12/03/2011 6:01:56 AM PST by MontaniSemperLiberi (Moutaineers are Always Free)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

With Romney faltering, time to turn to Huntsman I guess. Anything to stop a conservative from winning the nomination.


38 posted on 12/03/2011 6:19:41 AM PST by cotton1706
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Stop. Just stop.


39 posted on 12/03/2011 6:28:44 AM PST by RichInOC (Palin 2012: The Perfect Storm.)
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To: St. Louis Conservative
Then Georgie Will has gone senile.

The is nothing at all “conservative” about Huntsmann. His big govt statist solutions on everything from Bank Regulation to the myth of global warming expose him as just another Democrat Lite RINO.

40 posted on 12/03/2011 6:45:57 AM PST by MNJohnnie (Giving more money to DC to fix the Debt is like giving free drugs to addicts think it will cure them)
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