Paging Kal of TMND on the Tea Party
Issandr El Amrani | US teaparty Kal of the Moor Next Door — one of the best blogs on the Maghreb and one of the best English-language Aran world blogs tout court — cites my recent National piece on the Tea Party approvingly, but takes an issue with oen thing:
Issandr is incorrect to describe “all” of the Republican hopefuls as “akin to religious fundamentalists”. There is at least one, Jon Huntsman, who does not fit the mold of the fried Twinkie crowd this year. Huntsman, the Obama administration’s former Ambassador to China, is a middle of the road Mormon from Utah (where he was governor). By virtually any measure he has many fewer remarks about Islam or Muslims than his opponents and none of those one can find reflect the cruel recycled anti-Semitic tropes where “Hebrew” or “Jew” is replaced with “Islamist” or “[crypto-] Muslim” heard on the House floor and at Tea Party rallies. His family appears to fit the stereotype of the western Mormon family: big, happy and wholesome. He has virtually all of the substantive foreign policy experience in the Republican primary field. While wiry, he is convincingly presidential in appearance and speaks responsibly and deliberately. If he were a garment, he would be a size medium.
I did not mean to say that all were religious fundamentalists — in fact I only see Bachmann and possibly Perry as such. It was an editing error — I meant to say that some were fundamentalists, not all, but I messed it up as ?I rewrote before filing. It's an important distinction, because like Kal I have been curious about the candidacy of John Huntsman, the outlier in this crowd. A former ambassador to China, he seems to be the strongest candidare on foreign policy (in terms of expertise rather than "toughness", nowadays the favored Republican barometer) and is certainly the most moderate on many if not all issues. And he has good hair, a capital requirement for the American presidency since Ronald Reagan at least. Superficially speaking, the way I feel about Huntsman is that if he weren't a member of an increasingly radical right-wing party, I would consider voting for him (note that I don't know much about his record in Utah, so that could change quickly). Imagine what swing voters might feel compared to a Bachmann or Perry.
I post about this here because The Moor Next Door no longer seems to have comments did not have comments enabled on that post.
Reader Comments (4)
Issandr, while I don't have in-depth knowledge of Huntsman, I've followed him off and on over the years enough to have a few things to add. Huntsman's record in Utah stands out for being amazingly sane for this bizarrest of red states (I say that as a former resident and someone with many ongoing personal connections). He pushed very non-right wing points on some key issues in a state that often demands politicians be as extreme right wing as possible to be elected. He pushed for a reasonable and humane approach to immigration issues, and despite a complete lack of political pressure (indeed pressure mostly to do exactly the opposite) to do so he came out openly in favor of civil unions for homosexual couples. Some saw the first inklings of presidential ambition in his civil unions statements, but it is worth mentioning that despite taking these positions that were very against the Utah grain, he left office with an astounding 80% approval rating. Further in his past, he served a Mormon mission in Taiwan where he picked up the fluent Mandarin he's been using as ambassador in China. Reportedly in Beijing he initially faced an embassy staff wary he'd be just another political hack ambassador appointee, and went on to win them over as a highly effective, professional, and likable leader. He is of course part of the well known Huntsman uber-wealthy family in the Huntsman Chemical company empire. Huntsman Chemical by the way have a substantial position in the Saudi petrochemical sector, perhaps inevitable given the high profile of Huntsman and the rising global-scale importance of the Saudi petrochemical industry. I'm not sure off the top of my head where Jon's position in the family business empire is. His father the founder also endowed a major center for cancer research at the University of Utah.
As for his presidential candidacy, it appears to be foundering early unfortunately. Personally, this is a guy I'd actually vote for over Obama and I'm someone who couldn't dream of voting for anyone else in the current Republican looneybin party. He's got a bunch of advisors from the 2000 McCain straight-talk express guys. While I consider McCain a semi-crazy politician himself, he was crazy in a very different way from the rest of the Republican tea party and right wing nutzo trend. In 2000 his campaign represented something far more independent and sensible, even if he himself was a bit too loose cannon. Picking up that crowd of advisors for Huntsman in my mind marks a certain positive streak of independence. On top of that, Huntsman just seems downright effective with a proven political record in Utah, compared to Obama's prior lack of experience and now in my view Obama's 3 years of utter political failure (I don't think many of the right-wing attacks on Obama have credence, and the right wing itself bears a lot of blame for the political failures of the past 3 years, but the fact remains that Obama came in with huge political capital, has failed to bring sides together, and has produced horrible failures across domestic and foreign policy that exhibit a common pattern). In many ways, I think Huntsman has the capacity to be what a lot of people hoped Obama would be: an effective centrist who can unite people, and create a concrete plan and vision for a country that seems to be losing its way domestically and globally.
Unfortunately, I've long thought that such a sane person is simply impossible to get nominated in the Republican party and the current state of Republican affairs seems to bear that out. It would appear Huntsman's own cautiousness is also working against him. Either way, despite easily in my mind being the best candidate among the Republicans (the only serious candidate frankly), his campaign is foundering and it's barely out of the starting gate. Maybe this is a test run for him and he'll be more serious in 2016, or maybe some second wind is about to get started, I don't know. And maybe there's things in his record I'm missing (I haven't heard any Muslim bashing, but I'm watching like a hawk for it) that would turn me off him. Right now though, he's the best candidate out there for 2012 in my view, very much including Obama despite me being a registered Democrat. But I have very little hope he's gonna make it, so I presume we'll either Obama vs a true Republican nutter or Obama versus a frankly soul-less flip-flopping Muslim-throwing-under-the-bussing Romney.
I would agree with what both Kal and Non Arab said except we now have the Tea Party (which by the way is controlled by the likes of the Koch Brothers). There are enough in that extremist group to lead John Boehner around by the nose. I fear Huntsman would do just as well when faced with dealing with the Tea Party. Obama himself has caved to nearly every Republican issue. The budget battle being the worst in that he actually gave them more in spending cuts than they asked for with no revenue increases. I believe it was George Bush the senior who called that "voo doo economics. As for Huntsman he'd cave just the same or more so because of Tea Party politics and the will of Wall Street. And don't kid yourself into thinking that Wall Street is suffering. They bought shorts to cover this market long before it was fashionable.
Huntsman may be for gay civil unions but he won't get that idea past the Tea Party or other republican extremists. And the republicans on the national level weren't too happy about his Utah immigration plan either.
I see a need for a third party to counter all the extremists. What we're seeing right now is democracy at it's worst. That's where the minority rules and little to nothing gets done. I can only hope that Egypt can learn a few things from our mistakes.
Thanks Non-Arab-Arab and Demeur — I absolutely agree with you on Obama (his failure) and Huntsman (the inevitability of him or any other reasonable Republican candidate behind held hostage).
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