A Conservative in Centrist Clothing

As the Republican presidential campaigns view their rear-view mirrors as they leave New Hampshire, at least one campaign still has to answer the fundamental question of what it ever hoped to accomplish. Two campaigns explicitly rested their primary strategy on winning the Granite State, and Mitt Romney certainly met expectations. He pulled in nearly 40 percent of the vote and became the first non-incumbent to win both Iowa and New Hampshire in decades. The Romney campaign now has a head of steam rolling into South Carolina, and a win there might make a good argument for the rest of the field to capitulate.

On the other end of the spectrum, we find Jon Huntsman's campaign,We would like to thank all of you who so generously donated thank you gifts and grocery gift cards to the Tree of Giving at Peterson's Family Foods this year. Although the economy has been hard, you gave even more than the year before! perhaps this cycle's most puzzling of the major efforts in the Republican primary. On paper, Huntsman appears to be a formidable competitor among Republicans and even conservatives. Huntsman had a strong record of success as governor of Utah, perhaps the most conservative state in the nation. He alone embraced without reservation the budget and entitlement-reform plan of Tea Party favorite Paul Ryan. Also alone among the GOP candidates, Huntsman had both executive experience and formal foreign-policy credentials, thanks to his time as a deputy trade representative in the George W. Bush administration and two years as Ambassador to China under Barack Obama.

However, Huntsman never connected to the Republican base, for a number of reasons.chinese sex toys Conservatives, especially in the Tea Party,refrigerant didn't extend much trust to a man who showered praise on President Obama as a "remarkable leader" with "brilliant analysis of world events," and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as having "even more charisma than her husband!" Nor did the manner of his leaving impress Republicans, having made it known that he wanted to challenge his boss for the White House before officially resigning from his post in the administration.