jon huntsman, dadaist

So it looks like I was wrong about Jon Huntsman: he really is considering a run in 2012. His first achievement has been to confuse the internet, at least the US political blognescenti. Nobody understands what he's up to. His signalling of intent (and if only by not shutting this story down, he is very definitely signalling) has been greeted as an attack on the laws of political sense. Here's the smart conservative commentator Daniel Larison:

What intrigues me about Huntsman’s campaign is that it seems to make no sense at all.

Larison's reaction is typical. In a party seized by Tea Party extremism, there's really little call for a candidate who would sit to the left of Mitt Romney. In a campaign that's all about defeating the incumbent, it would be weird to nominate a man who has worked for him quite happily for the last eighteen months (and who will risk looking duplicitous and disloyal if attacks his former employer overtly).It's crazy. It makes no sense at all.

Why's he doing it then? We know he's not stupid. Perhaps Huntsman is engaged in an act of aesthetic assault on the customs and conventions of political discourse. Perhaps he is seeking to shatter the very notion of rationality itself. I mean, you have to wonder.

Then again maybe he thinks he has a shot. Let's at least try and guess what he's thinking.

He's done his time in China, no doubt had a fascinating time, and burnished his foreign policy credentials. But now he's a little bored (ambassadors, even senior ones, don't have much power) and thinking about what to do next. He knows he wants to be president. He thought he'd wait until 2016 after Obama has come to the end of a second term and the GOP's ideological fever has subsided. But as 2011 comes around, Obama is looking more beatable than he seemed when he was elected. The rest of the Republican field is weak, with no clear front-runner, and many candidates. It's therefore inherently unpredictable, and there's a chance - even if it's only 5-10% - that an unlikely outsider could bounce through the pinball machine of the primaries and somehow emerge as the last man standing, if you'll excuse my mixed metaphor. John McCain looked like a no-hoper in 2007.

And if, as is likely, Huntsman loses - well, he wins. He will have gained national name recognition in his party and in the country at large (the media will adore his candidacy and give him disproportionate airtime). He will have accumulated very valuable experience, and built relationships with voters and key future allies in primary states. If he does well he can come back strong - the favourite even - in 2016. Very relevant here is his financial position. He has a massive (inherited) personal fortune. So he can afford to throw some of it at a race he knows he's likely to lose.

So why not give it a shot, thinks Huntsman. After all, what else am I going to do?

Comments

[Anthony]

"Gary Larison"

Daniel Larison. Gary Larison is a bloke from Nebraska who keeps being asked if he's the famous cartoonist.

[Ian Leslie]

Whoops. Thanks Anthony.

[ejoch]

Does Huntsman perhaps think Romney isn't a viable candidate (for all the usually-mentioned reasons) and there's a space for a moderate? That would imply that he thinks his name recognition is up there with Romney though, and above the other moderate guys in the field.