Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Stanley Fish, writing...

...in the Times today, reminds us that Jon Huntsman (and Mitt Romney) would have a better chance of winning a general election than the Republican nomination:

Does [Huntsman] have a chance, first to win the nomination and then to win the presidency? A better chance at the second than the first. In the current field of Republican wannabes Huntsman bears the liability of having worked for Barack Obama, in addition to the even greater liability of having refused to say harsh things about him. Huntsman is also somewhat more liberal on social issues than his competitors, is not, it would seem, a tea-party type, and has low name recognition and correspondingly low poll numbers.

This is a problem for the GOP. And like the Tories in Britain, they'll have to work it out for themselves. But in the meantime, I'm left to ask, why aren't Huntsman and Romney Democrats?

(By the way, I've read that Huntsman -- like just about everyone else, it seems -- can't stand Mitt Romney. Maybe, besides positioning himself for 2016, Huntsman is running to thwart Romney.)

No comments: