- Joined
- Nov 30, 2011
- Messages
- 5,586
- Reaction score
- 2,420
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
I agree here. There's a variety of reasons that Huntsman didn't take off and I've gone into them at length, but this is one of them. He has a very moderate TONE to him that just doesn't really draw great attention in something like a party primary. For someone with such potential imho he ran one of the crappiest campaigns strategy wise that I've seen in my short bit of time watching politics.
What's funny, and it's one of the reason I like you because it shows you think, if I remember correectly you weren't a fan of Paul at first and slowly came around as you started looking into him.
I think you would've liked Huntsman had you looked into him. Probably not as much as Paul depending, but you would've. He's more hawkish than Paul is but less so than some other candidates, believing the military needs to start thinking in a 21st century mindset and attempting to find ways to modernize based on the new realities of warfare in terms of finding ways to cut spending rather than just go chopping at it (there's an article I need to find again explaining his stance on the military and I think it's outstanding). He's more moderately fiscal than Paul, but that's like saying $95 dollars is less money than $100. I would actually say he's more pragmatically conservative on fiscal policy than Paul. However, he had a great fiscal record of actually accomplishing things which is a bit different then what Paul has. He's more socially conservative, policy wise, than Paul is but still moderately socially conservative compared to most of the republican candidates. Pretty strong in terms of governmental conservatism. He had three major issues and each came with caveats that his detractors rarely brought up that mitigate them to a point. Really was an oustanding candidate in theory but just horrible in application sadly enough. It was his run that made me fully understand what some people felt in '08 with Paul...that feeling that for the first time they found a candidate they can actually fully rally behind becuase they support them massively, not because they're a lesser evil.
Exactly, his tone is moderate. I thought he was Romney-lite. I actually remember looking at my wife during a debate and saying "This dude is like Romney's lesser twin".
LOL, I actually hated Ron Paul at first. Again, I remember saying to my wife "This dude is out to lunch! He needs to retire or something". Then, I slowly started looking into his stances, evaluating why we (I) have gone to war with the people and countries we (I) have, and realized he was right. BTW, I appreciate the compliment.
I'm going to look into Huntsman more in case he runs again. I have heard a few people say that this shouldn't be the last time he ran.