Huntsman Lands Big Endorsement

Today, Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman received a major boost to his campaign just five days before the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday night. The Boston Globe, Massachusetts’ most influential newspaper, endorsed the former Utah Governor as their pick for the Republican nominee for 2012. This is big news for the Huntsman campaign, which has seen anemic support so far throughout the Republican race and it may also come as a surprise to some since Mitt Romney, current frontrunner for the nomination, was once the paper’s state governor. It may come as a surprise to everyone, except Romney himself. The Globe in the 2008 campaign endorsed Sen. John McCain, who eventually won the nomination. With the primary so close, it’s difficult to say if this endorsement is too little, too late for the Huntsman campaign, or if it will provide a flurry of media attention and support in the waning days before the primary, similar to former Sen. Rick Santorum before the Iowa caucus Tuesday night. With the top-tier of candidates so tight and many republicans still undecided, this endorsement could be just what Huntsman needs to finally make a move towards the top.

Republican voters seem, at least before Romney’s narrow Iowa caucus victory earlier this week, reluctant to pick and stay with a candidate. The field has seen Michelle Bachmann (dropped out of the race after finishing last in Iowa), Herman Cain (dropped out), Rick Perry (back in Texas to reassess his campaign after a 5^th place Iowa finish), and Newt Gingrich all at one time taking the top spot in polling. Ron Paul has seen steadily increasing numbers and has the most ardent supporters. Paul feels so strongly about the loyalty of his base he has not yet ruled out running as a Third-Party candidate in the general election. And there’s Huntsman, who has run a steady campaign in New Hampshire (he did not participate in the Iowa caucuses), but has seen very little support come his way. The Globe’s endorsement may help change all that. Romney leads comfortably in New Hampshire, but a strong surge from Huntsman, possibly moving him into 2^nd or 3^rd in the Republican race could upend the field and bring many of these candidates back down to earth. Just look at the end to the Globe piece:

                “But even if Romney emerges as the nominee, it matters how he gets there. Already, the religious Right, represented by Rick Santorum, and Tea Party activists, represented by Ron Paul, have pushed Romney in unwanted directions. In New Hampshire, Republican and independent voters have a chance, through Huntsman, to show [Romney] a sturdier model. Jon Huntsman would be a better president. But if he fails, he could still make Romney a better candidate.”

Romney is, in view of many analysts, a moderate pandering to the far Right in order to secure the nomination, and that should he win the presidency, he’ll be much less conservative than the party wants (probably the reason voters are reluctant to pick him and constantly looking elsewhere for a viable conservative they can support). And as the Globe points out, “Huntsman has been bold” when it comes to his beliefs and values, and contrary to Romney’s denunciation of all-things-Obama, his unsubstantive vision of repeal, repeal, repeal while speaking little of what he would replace it with, Huntsman has consistently laid out his goals for the future.

A link from Huntsman's campaign website provides a detailed overview of some of Huntsman’s signature goals if elected president. But there are a few items that I have been watching with Huntsman for several months now.

Huntsman opposes the notion that ‘corporations are people’ and the controversial decision of the Supreme Court in early 2010 in the Citizens United case. The entire Republican field has endorsed the decision of the court and none find it controversial nor view it as a threat to our democracy. It is, and Huntsman is the only candidate who rightfully believes so. Mitt Romney on the other hand was against the idea of granting “personhood” to corporations until, or course, he needed to raise cash for his campaign and very publically proclaimed to a worried gathering of supporters when questioned on the decision, “Corporations are people, my friend,” then dismissively went on to another topic.

Jon Huntsman refuses to accept that global warming is a natural trend and wants to reduce our carbon footprint, reduce our emissions, and strongly supports turning our economy off foreign oil, as well as fossil fuels all-together, and move the country towards a green economy so that we can compete with the $5 Trillion alternative fuel industry emerging in China, India, and the rest of the world.

And finally, Governor Huntsman has been advocating the break-up of “Too Big to Fail” banks, recognizing their involvement, deceit, negligence, and criminal activity that lead to the housing crash and ultimately the Great Recession. Rightfully, Mr. Huntsman has bemoaned the Obama Administration and Congress for failing to address and change the systemic issues of the financial services industry with the Dodd-Frank Act that was passed into law in 2011. He believes lawmakers failed to pass meaningful reform.

I do not necessarily agree with Mr. Huntsman on everything. I do not like that he is basing his plans for entitlement reform on Paul Ryan’s deficit reduction plan, which essentially ends Social Security as we know it. Huntsman seems willing to expand domestic oil production, which I think could pave the way for approval of the Keystone oil pipeline, the benefits of which are considered by many wildly over exaggerated, and threatens vulnerable environmental areas throughout the country. But what I do not want to happen is come November, I’m casting my vote to re-elect President Obama simply because the guy standing at the other podium is so dangerous to human rights, so neoconservative in their views on tax cuts and military spending, so disastrously unqualified, that I have no choice. If Jon Huntsman wins the GOP nomination, he will also force President Obama to become a better candidate.

Public Health and Safety

As we reported last week, the Occupy Wall Street camp down at Zuccotti Park was raided in the early morning hours of Tuesday, November 15th. The occupiers were removed from the park, either obeying a city ordinance to clean the area, or disobeying the ordinance and removed forcibly by police. When the cleaning was done (tents, books, their personal belongings trashed or packed up and taken to a holding area where they could be picked up later), the occupiers were allowed to return, but no longer could bring tents or sleeping bags back into the park with them. The city, and notably Mayor Michael Bloomberg, rationalized their decision citing the encampments dangers to public health and safety. I wish the Mayor, and other city officials, were more concerned with risks to public health and safety in other areas of the city.

To Mayor Bloomberg's credit, I will say that his concern for public safety in this situation seems synchronous with some of his other social and political stances. He is a large voice in the Mayors Against Illegal Guns campaign, and generally believes lax gun laws in urban environments leads to higher rates of crime and homicide. Though Republican, Bloomberg is not a climate science denier. He believes global warming is a serious threat to people, our children, and our world. Couple these things with his reasoning to effectively shut down the Occupy Wall Street camp, and it's easy to draw the correlations of his concern for the safety of the public. However, it still was not right to trash constitutional rights of citizens.

But more importantly here, we must ask the Mayor, or any right-wing pundit who seems to have no problem reporting and parroting the Mayor's excuse for raiding the camp: why does this "threat" to public health and safety of the Occupy Wall Street camp bear any more danger to lower Manhattan than crime in other parts of the city? Why doesn't the Mayor send a military-style police force into Bed-Stuy, Chelsea, or Midtown to "clean" that part of the city? Why doesn't the Mayor send a military-trained police force into the subway system to clean the crumbling platforms, the filth-covered drainage gutters between the tracks, or the rust-streaked white tiling on the walls? Most importantly, why aren't the police invading the buildings down at Wall Street not to arrest and disperse Occupiers, but to raid the offices of commercial banks whose practices are a threat to the public health and safety of America, whose packaging of mortgages into derivatives collapsed the economy, who skirted and lobbied Washington to waterdown Dodd-Frank so they could build another economic bubble just to see it pop again, to get bailed out and to hemorrhage even more money from the poor and middle class? The people on Wall Street represent a clear and present danger to the public health and safety of New York City, Mr. Bloomberg. Just ask Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, since he told the Congressional panel investigating the causes of the financial meltdown that "crises" should be expected "every five to seven years." If you take into account that every crisis only serves to hurt the poor and middle class while the rich get more well-off, then it seems to me like these crises are planned and actually the financial sector hopes for them. They get the bailout. America gets the bill.