Jon Huntsman – Republican’s next “Great White Hope”

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Republican concerns about the pathetic nature of their party’s presidential candidates, might get a lift now that the former ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, is embarking on a five-day campaign swing through New Hampshire. A trip that will put him from and center, and let the increasingly desperate GOP voters get a good look at him.

Five months after offering himself as a potential presidential candidate – and several weeks after leaving his post in Beijing – Huntsman remains politically anonymous. He has scarcely spoken in public, delivering a single commencement speech and giving an extended interview to just one publication. In true Republican fashion, among his stops this weekend he will visit a gun-store. So he must be a serious contender.

Tim Miller, a spokesman for Huntsman’s political action committee, pointed to the New Hampshire trip as a prime opportunity to make headway, noting: “Nobody’s heard a stump speech for him yet.”

“This is a trip that is focused on retail, New Hampshire-style politics. It’s what he enjoys,” Miller said. “He’s going to talk about the issues that are central to his campaign.”

The first visit to New Hampshire is a challenge for any presidential candidate and perhaps even more so for Huntsman, who has been off the trail for two and a half years and has never run a campaign outside deeply conservative, heavily Mormon Utah, where he was elected twice to the Governor’s office. He resigned during his second term when President Obama offered him the Ambassador’s job in Beijing.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer