GOP consultant Steve Goldberg claims he's the only one who has a chance against Obama (via Ben Smith). For what it's worth, I agree. Michael Dougherty outlines Huntsman's conservative record and announces:
Are you a Republican looking for a more viable alternative to Mitt Romney? Has the cratering of Rick Perry left you feeling hopeless? Do the scandals afflicting Herman Cain make you think he isn't all that electable? Well, there is still a very electable conservative in the race! Surprise it is Jon Huntsman!
James Poulos blames the Huntsman campaign:
Team Huntsman [has] blundered for no good reason. Look at Huntsman mastermind John Weaver, best known for his time atop Campaign McCain. “It’s a fork in the road between seriousness and circus,” he told Dana Milbank last month. Really? If so, Huntsman would be better off not running at all. … What does it say about an essentially mainstream conservative like Huntsman that he entrusts his brand and his electoral fortunes to a man who wants him to run against his own appeal to the Republican base broadly understood?
I take James' point, but don't think it's the real reason. The GOP is a religious and cultural force dominated by evangelicals, and fixated on total rejection of establishment or liberal ideas. Huntsman has acknowledged climate change, alone among the candidates. He has backed civil unions for gays, alone among the candidates. These two positions, in my view, all but dismissed him from the race from the get-go. His radical tax reform ideas are therefore ignored in favor of Herman Cain's. His energy policy is trumped by Perry's desire to turn the entire US into Texas (because Texas is about the only place he barely understands). And he worked for Barack Obama in China and speaks fluent Mandarin (not that I can tell whether he's fluent but he gives a good impression of it on TV). These are all culturally anathema to what the GOP now is.
When you realize this intelligent and capable two-term governor from the rock-ribbed Republican state of Utah, with deep domestic and foreign policy experience, has one tenth of the support of a pizza guy who emerged from motivational speaking and talk radio, and who admits he knows nothing about foreign policy and has never held elective office in his life … well, you have the core reality of today's Ailes-led, resentment-fueled GOP.
The only hope is for Huntsman to keep at it, place a marker and wait. The Republicans, just like the British Tories after 1997, may go through several unelectable candidates before they find their own Cameron. And what were the two issues that helped Cameron break through to the wider public? Climate change and homosexuality. When the right accepts reality on those topics – that the two phenomena even exist – you'll know it's one the way back.
(Photo: Republican presidential candidate Gov. Jon Huntsman leaves the stage after speaking to students at George Washington University October 25, 2011 in Washington, DC. Huntsman jokingly offered comedian Stephen Colbert the vice presidential nomination during an appearance on 'The Colbert Report' last night. By Win McNamee/Getty Images.)
The Dish 