{"id":10063,"date":"2011-06-10T15:20:33","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T19:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=10063"},"modified":"2011-06-10T16:22:12","modified_gmt":"2011-06-10T20:22:12","slug":"jon-huntsman-to-replicate-giulianis-losing-presidential-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/10063\/jon-huntsman-to-replicate-giulianis-losing-presidential-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Huntsman to Replicate Giuliani’s Losing Presidential Strategy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, CFIF’s own Ashton Ellis has been a one-man truth machine, making sure <\/a>that conservatives are aware of the moderate-to-liberal record of former Utah Governor — and soon-to-be presidential candidate — Jon Huntsman. Well, if the former chief executive of the Beehive State has his way, the day may soon come when Ashton Ellis doesn’t have Jon Huntsman to kick around any more. The reason: Huntsman now appears to be embracing the same political strategy that doomed Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential bid.<\/p>\n

Huntsman has already taken a pass on contesting Iowa, where he’s unlikely to play well with social conservatives (as of today, it appears that Mitt Romney may be making the same calculation<\/a>). That means that the New Hampshire primary (where undeclared voters more sympathetic to his views)\u00a0will be of critical importance to his campaign.<\/p>\n

This is much the same position that Giuliani found himself in during the 2008 race. But Hizzoner’s aversion to retail politics led him to run a drive-by campaign in New Hampshire and focus on larger states where the race would primarily be run in the media. We all know how that turned out.<\/p>\n

Now comes news that Huntsman can’t be bothered with some of the vagaries of Granite State politics either. From Politico<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Jon Huntsman\u2019s decision to skip the first New Hampshire presidential debate on Monday has Republicans in the state confused \u2014 and predicting that he\u2019ll suffer politically for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a guy who has said publicly he\u2019s going to skip Iowa, it seems like he\u2019d want to be here for that debate,\u201d said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman who met Huntsman at one of his early events in Durham. \u201cIt\u2019s the first real debate and for a guy who seems to be all-in in New Hampshire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cullen was one of a half-dozen local GOP players raising concerns about Huntsman\u2019s absence from a debate that will feature both Tim Pawlenty and, for the first time, Mitt Romney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think skipping the first debate is very serious,\u201d said Mike Dennehy, a longtime New Hampshire consultant who helped lead John McCain\u2019s presidential campaign in 2008. \u201cI think it shows either you\u2019re afraid to join the others on stage for the first time or you\u2019re unwilling to \u2014 both of which don\u2019t give voters a lot of confidence in a candidate.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is it about this election cycle that produces such lethargic work ethics<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, CFIF’s own Ashton Ellis has been a one-man truth machine, making sure that conservatives are aware of the moderate-to-liberal record of former Utah Governor — and soon-to-be presidential candidate — Jon Huntsman. Well, if the former chief executive of the Beehive State has his way, the day may soon come when Ashton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[914,2775,2652,160,2722,869,2243],"class_list":["post-10063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2012-presidential-election","tag-iowa-caucus","tag-jon-huntsman","tag-mitt-romney","tag-new-hampshire-primary","tag-newt-gingrich","tag-rudy-giuliani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10063"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10079,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10063\/revisions\/10079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}