Into a field that already promises more nuts than Aunt Betty's Christmas fruitcake, now comes Jon Huntsman Jr., officially. The third or so of the newly declared GOP candidates for Default Leader of the Free World arrives in Exeter next week to use our historic taxpayer-maintained old Town Hall as the stage set.
If you're handicapping the horses already, you should chalk a point up for Dead Man Walking, Mitt Romney, at this early milepost in the race for local hearts and minds. Mitt's stillborn campaign at least had the courtesy to stage its Greek comedy out on the Scamman ranch where it didn't cost taxpayers much at all. The Scammans may not be able to pick a winner (did someone say Giuliani?) but they're very experienced crowd controllers who put on a good show with minimal taxpayer inconvenience. In the heart of Exeter where Huntsman himself promises to make history next week, you can expect traffic tie-ups, media jaywalking, unruly crowds of flagwavers and the hot dog guy will probably move uptown too, adding to the chaos. Is it too late for the Scammans to consider endorsing two candidates this season?
Romney and Huntsman are on a collision course, of course. New Hampshire GOP cognoscenti already know the Utah brothers-from-another-mother share an eerily common heritage. Both are super-rich products of the Mormon elite. Both were missionaries, a virtual requirement for Mormon boys, and were raised according to the ultra-conservative cultural norms of the Mormon organization. Both have deep family roots in party politics and political appointments. Both served as governors and in high-profile Republican appointed positions.
Mitt the son of the former head of American Motors, later governor of Michigan, George Romney. Jon the son of billionaire namesake Jon Meade Huntsman, Sr., he of the Huntsman Corporation, the world production leader of diphenylmethane disocyanate, complex polyurethane catalysts and other organic compounds the industrial world needs, a product inventory impressive enough to make your head spin like a Third World teenager huffing carpet cement.
Along with telegenic looks and American-pretty wives, lots of personal money to work with alongside what will be huge sums in PAC support, the two GOP protons have easily passed the pre-fight physical for what will be a bloody GOP primary battle. But Romney, the estimable but unfortunate GOP frontrunner today, is unlikely to survive the battering from all sides that will surely come. Mitt is ultimately too thin as a person, not galvanizing enough as a personality, and pale by comparison with Huntsman, who already looks and sounds as though bioengineered to resonate with the demographics of general election voters.
But how New Hampshire reacts to the pseudo-progressive Huntsman remains to be seen. Surely Mitt’s 180-degree spin machine that has turned him into a pro-life, anti-gay, anti-healthcare rights, anti-government nabob will irritate the flinty New Hampshire. How long Huntsman will ignore Romney in new Hampshire, saving negative attacks for down the line when they're really needed, is perhaps the most interesting question surrounding the two.
Less engaging is what these guys actually do stand for. They both portray Obama as the living Satan, naturally. And they both have reinvented themselves versus their pasts, pretending their lengthy political careers have been dedicated to hampering government. Both girded for the national campaigns by flipflopping on healthcare reform and other social issues. And their ultimate buyouts of the Tea Party stockholders remain to be made. Where will the Utahans stake out their campaign grounds?
These are two supremely privileged children on highly placed rungs of American industry. Expect Romney and Huntsman to act according to their backgrounds, not their calling. America calls them to work on a panoply of vexing issues. But both will repeat for as long as necessary the same worn-out, trickle-down, tall-in-the-saddle, not-gonna-take-it-anymore mantras that have clothed the GOP’s big business mores in populist camouflage for three decades.
Until Huntsman discards Reagan's sorry legacy, he will not make history, only echo it. The GOP field will altogether spout and declaim through the early primaries, their constituents sooner or later wizening up to the fact that Obama will pin frontrunner Romney's ears back in the general election and send the already once-defeated presidential contender home for good. Turning then to its best alternate, Huntsman (or maybe Pawlenty,) the GOP will turn to the serious business of annealing the candidate. Mitt will be gone when the dust from Super Tuesday settles. Huntsman, the GOP’s Obama analogue, will likely prevail. He's the youngest seeming, most interesting and only apparently compassionate candidate among the field. Whether that plays for or against with the Republican base remains to be seen.
What is more certain is that Romney, the party’s Gore analogue if there ever was one, will quickly confirm he is a groundless wannabe without a viable political past. Sadly, Massachusetts’ actual demonstration of the advantages of healthcare reform have doomed Romney. Huntsman, who as Utah governor was poised to implement Obamacare reforms but didn’t, will wriggle through. The only way Mitt’s Dead Man Walking Campaign will survive long enough to let the Massachusetts GOP primary voter embarrass him nationally is if Huntsman admits he inhaled, Palin releases the rest of the field's dirty pictures, and Reagan sends Romney an endorsement message from the grave.