Dear Jon Huntsman, We Don’t Deserve You

3. He doesn’t puff his feathers or sweater vests

Unlike Rick Santorum, Huntsman has not shed his suits for scratchy sweater vests and bigotry in superficial attempts to resonate with the blue collar voting base, nor has he swapped his views a la Mitt Romney. Consistently conservative and pro-life, Jon Huntsman has opted instead for modesty and rationality to appeal to voters, not hollow demagoguery based on social values or sound bites.

Like it or not, Huntsman has no “999.” He has no polarizing rhetoric: he has reason, and today that won’t even get you second place—it will get you third, and a distant one at that. But he realizes this: in a Washington Post interview, Huntsman said “the work of the nation isn’t getting done because we’ve got the extreme elements on both sides that are barking at each other, and the entire middle has been hollowed out. You put forward a message that addresses that, and you wonder if people are ready for that.”

4. He’s actually committed to public—not party—service

While his conservative competitors attempted to lambast Huntsman for putting his country before his ideology throughout his overseas services rendered under a Democrat administration, Huntsman was quick with his riposte: Adding to his statement that he always puts his country first, Huntsman said that “[the] nation is divided because of views like that.” In doing so Huntsman tilted his head toward Romney, the obstructionist who puts his recently donned conservatism before his country. Despite exposing the cavernous core of Romney’s cheap political costume, it seems to have made little difference: Romney is still dominating South Carolina polls.

5. He worked for Obama

No, Obama is not the antichrist; he’s just the President governing over a generally hellish time. And no, working for him will not render you susceptible to the unsightly disease of liberalitis (despite the fact that some claim that Obama isn’t a liberal in the slightest). However in the eyes of many conservatives, Huntsman has already been infected and therefore is not a viable candidate for president.

To the chagrin of his presidential ambitions, Huntsman served as Obama’s Ambassador to China from 2009 until 2011. Never mind the fact that Huntsman also worked as an aid to Republican darling Ronald Reagan and served in he-who-shall-not-be-named’s administration as Deputy US Trade Representative from 2001 to 2003; by serving Obama from thousands of miles away, he has sipped the proverbial kool-aid and therefore cannot be trusted.