Jon Huntsman drops out of the race and endorses Mitt Romney for president

  At this point this is not breaking news, but Jon Huntsman announced earlier today that he is dropping out of the race for president and is throwing his support behind Mitt Romney. In my opinion Jon Huntsman’s undoing was threefold:

1. Name recognition

2. A mistrust among conservatives

3. Political miscalculation and campaign strategy

  I believe that these three issues are intertwined and so I will address them collectively instead of individually: Because Jon Huntsman did not have name recognition and because he worked in the Obama regime as ambassador to China conservative voters didn’t really know much about him other than the fact that he was employed by Barack Obama.

    This led to a mistrust with conservative voters and while all the candidates were trying to tout their conservative credentials, Jon Huntsman tried to carve out a niche with Republican voters by portraying himself as a more moderate option to the other Republican candidates in the early debates, further alienating himself with conservative voters.

 This was a political miscalculation from which he was never able to recover. Coupled with the campaign strategy of skipping the Iowa Caucuses and making his stand in New Hampshire he was not able to gain enough traction from the New Hampshire primary to keep his presidential bid alive through South Carolina.

  Once he realized his political miscalculation he pivoted and tried to more accurately describe himself as a consistent conservative and his record as governor of Utah seems to back up this claim–he is more conservative than he was willing to admit early on–but because he tried to remake his image in the middle of the campaign it led to more doubt with the voters about who he really was. If he had been more honest about his record early on when the voters still hadn’t made up their minds about him he may have fared better, but at this point it is all hindsight and we know how the saying goes about hindsight.

  As is so often the case, in dropping out of the race he showed that he is a man who probably should have been more well received by the voters and siting the need to defeat Barack Obama in 2012, and the need to unite Republican voters against Barack Obama, he endorsed the man who he feels will be the most likely to defeat Barack Obama–Mitt Romney. We can argue that point but that is not the purpose of this post.

  With the latest polls showing Mitt Romney with a big lead in South Carolina we are left to wonder exactly what the effect of his endorsement will be. He was polling at around 5% in South Carolina and because he is still on the ballot I expect him to still pull in 1% of the vote. So the question is; where will the other 4% of Jon Huntsman’s supporters go?

  I expect the race to tighten up in South Carolina before all is said and done so if enough Huntsman supporters follow his lead and go to Mitt Romney it could be just enough to put Romney over the top in the state. But there is still a wildcard: Jon Huntsman’s position on Afghanistan more closely resembles Ron Paul’s position so those voters who are voting for Huntsman for his stance on Afghanistan may end up in the Ron Paul camp, thus bolstering the campaign of the only man besides Mitt Romney who has had a respectable showing in both Iowa and New Hampshire.