I do think there's definitely some room for bipartisan support of Huntsman.
Oh, absolutely there is. As I was saying back during the primaries....Huntsman issues in the primary is going to be the fact he has a Moderate
TONE. He's not fire an brimstone, he's not someone that's going to leap onto wedge issues, he's not someone making wild statements. The TONE hurts him in a primary, but would help him in the general election.
And I do think there are a decent bit of independents who were democrat voters the past few years, especially younger people, who could fall into that "Reagan Democrat" mold (THE HORROR! We must destroy the legacy of reagan, some
DEMOCRATS liked him. Democrats liking someone means they're a RINO!!!!!!!) in modern times. Gay Marriage is one of those things that bothers I think a lot of younger voters more than other issues might, and someone not just refraining from making wild statements about it but actually being okay about it suddenly may make them able to be more palatable. And I think that there are a fair bit of slightly left leaning moderates/independents who would actually go for the conservative message FISCALLY...but have issues getting past a few of the wedge social issues.
But the way that some liberals talked him up as a way of criticizing the Republicans really killed him, (not that his campaign helped rebut that.)
100% agree. That said, I actually place that blame again on his campaign. Part of why that was able to happen, and able to get some traction, was that his campaign did little to actually promote the wide range of conservative credentials and actual record that he has to counter that notion. They basically played into it.
I'm still kind of baffled by that HORRIBLE game plan. They basically ran a general election strategy in the primaries which is just.....idiotic.
It actually lowered some of my views of him because it really makes me question the intelligence of choosing his political advisers.
The thing is, if a lot of those people actually looked at Huntsman's positions and his record they wouldn't have been supporting him that way.
Agreed completely.
For every 10 liberal/left leaning "moderates/independents" that went on and on about how "sensible" Huntsman was or how he was a Republican they could "Get behind", I'd wager there was 3 or 4 who would've been bad mouthing him as TOO right wing if he actually had any shot of winning, and another 3 or 4 on top of that which would've started bad mouthing him as too right wing if they actually looked at his record.
He looked like someone with
zero shot of winning, so he was the easy candidate for Liberals to just go "HE'D be the person I'd support" because they knew they'd never actually have to be in a position to THINK about supporting him, so they never really had to give a crap about actually looking deeply at his views and record. They just heard his moderate TONE and saw he had little shot of winning, and so started choosing him as their token "He'd be okay!" guy to use for backhanded attacks at republicans.