Ackerman explains:
People are focusing on the fact that Huntsman won’t win. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is the fact that he can easily shift the Overton Window on security questions. The structural dynamic of the GOP race is that it’s the most foreign-policy starved that the party’s fielded in a generation. Huntsman’s ambassadorial experience might not grant him that much electorally, but for the purposes of the other candidates, it means Huntsman is the yardstick by which the press will measure the gravity of their foreign policy pronouncements.
The Dish 