THE ALREADY crowded field of Republican presidential candidates gained a new addition yesterday when Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah who was only seven weeks ago US president Barack Obama’s ambassador to China, announced he was joining the race.
Mr Huntsman made his first campaign speech in a New Jersey park with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop, a visual and historical allusion to Ronald Reagan, who announced his successful bid for the presidency in 1980 from the same spot.
“It was a time of trouble, worry and difficulty,” Mr Huntsman said. “[Reagan] assured us we could ‘make America great again’, and through his leadership, he did. Today, I stand in his shadow.”
Although Mr Huntsman scores in the low single digits for name recognition, his centrist reputation and suave looks and manner seem to worry the White House. Democratic officials including David Axelrod, a top adviser to the president, have taken pains to lambast Mr Huntsman’s shifting policies on the stimulus package, health care and climate change. “What has changed is not his view of the economy but his view of his own chances to, perhaps, win the nomination,” Mr Axelrod said.
Mr Huntsman’s greatest challenge will be to outshine the Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. The two men resemble one another like peas in a pod. Republicans have a predilection for former governors, on the grounds that they’ve already shown they can run the equivalent of a small country: Romney was governor of Massachusetts; Huntsman governor of Utah. Both are multi-millionaires and former chief executives of corporations. They even share the same telegenic allure, though Romney (64) is 13 years Huntsman’s senior.
Last but not least, both are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints – the first time the Mormons have had two serious contenders in the same race for the presidency. "I think that 2012 will be remembered as a pretty important year for Mormons," David Campbell, a Mormon political scientist from Notre Dame University, told the Washington Post. Either of the men could "become the JFK of Mormons and put the religion question to rest," Mr Campbell said.
But in a recent opinion poll by Pew Research Centre, 25 per cent of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a Mormon, a religious prejudice that could doom both candidacies. By comparison, only 3 per cent said they would hesitate to vote for an African-American. A total of 7 per cent would have reservations about a woman.
By contrast, the percentage who said they would vote for a homosexual candidate has risen to 62 per cent.
Many Americans associate the Mormons with polygamy, and Mr Romney’s religion is believed to have hurt his chances in the 2008 election. Rejection of a potential Mormon candidate runs highest at either end of the spectrum, among Evangelical Christians and Democratic liberals.
Mr Huntsman has sought to distinguish himself from the other candidates in several ways. His first campaign video shows a helmeted motorcyclist – presumably Mr Huntsman – decked out in red, white and blue riding through Monument Valley.
He talks frequently of his love of rock music, recounting that he dropped out of high school to play with a band called Wizard.
Civility in politics is perhaps Mr Huntsman’s most novel idea. Other Republican candidates launched their campaigns by denouncing Mr Obama as a “failure”. Mr Huntsman lamented the “corrosiveness” of US politics yesterday and promised to “conduct this campaign on the high road”.
“I respect my fellow Republican candidates. And I respect the president of the United States. He and I have a difference of opinion on how to help a country we both love,” Mr Huntsman said.