Former 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate
Former Governor of Utah and Ambassador to China
Jon Huntsman
A former Mormon missionary.
Scion of billion dollar chemical empire.
Fluent in Mandarin.
High school dropout (he obtained his G.E.D a few years later).
A personal friend of President Barack Obama.
Perceived by some as evasive.
Hardly a convincing choice as the Republican nominee for next year’s presidential election now, is he? But if one were to look deeper, the affable Huntsman may very well turn out to be the savior of the Republicans comes 2012.
The thoughtful, bipartisan thinking and media savvy motorcycle-riding former aide to both former presidents Reagan and Bush (H.W), exudes a breath of fresh air into the sometimes all too predictable Republican nomination process.
Huntsman is a conservative who is respected by the liberals, a blue blood that is at ease with the average Americans, a devout Mormon with rock music sensibilities and a nationalist that still calls Chinese Vice President, Xi Jinping, a friend.
Huntsman is a contradiction, an enigma, a complex personality; and because of his personal fortune, has never been beholden to anyone. His term as the Governor of Utah saw him maintaining a consistently, ridiculously high approval ratings in excess of 70%. In fact, he won reelection for his second term by capturing an incredible 77.7% of the vote – an almost unheard of figure in modern top-tier politics. The respected Pew Center on the States cited Utah as the best managed state in the country during his tenure.
His time in the Republican administration of the 80’s and early 90’s saw him rising from an ordinary aide to the United States Ambassador to Singapore (the youngest ever at 32) within a few short years. Huntsman is a formidable man indeed. But the most frightening thing about the father of seven is, he appears to have no skeletons in his closet; and that just might prove to be the clincher for the Republican voters and delegates in the coming months.
