The GOP needs a Huntsman

Ever since the Tea Party’s rise in 2009, it has blocked progress in the name of puritanical ideology, aching for a country where multiculturalism, women’s rights, social justice and globalization do not threaten its America.

If and when the party does come to its senses, it will see that it must embrace the future rather than fear it.

And no Republican has done so better than former Utah governor Jon Huntsman.

The former Ambassador to China under President Obama has, for many years, been an outsider in a party obsessed with hard-line social conservatism and a political agenda singularly focused on opposing the incumbent president.

Huntsman ran a civilized campaign for the GOP nomination that rarely attacked the president or other candidates.

Instead, Huntsman focused on his credentials as a fiscally disciplined governor who was able to spur job creation while in office, a man with experience in the private sector as an executive in the family’s chemical business, and, most recently, a diplomat tasked with representing American interests in front of our biggest rival, China.

Despite being a Mormon, Huntsman has consistently favored civil unions, and, in February 2013, he came out in support of same-sex marriage.

The former governor has also taken relatively progressive positions on immigration in relation to the rest of the Republicans.

As a part of that, Huntsman and his family represent the face of a changing nation.

Despite the family’s all-American looks worthy of a spread in a Brooks Brothers catalog, the Huntsman clan’s two youngest members were adopted from India and China, respectively.

Best of all, Huntsman has shown a willingness for pragmatic compromise that has for too long been absent in the Republican Party.

Although he sounds like a liberal’s dream, Huntsman is still very much a conservative.
He has taken a hard stance against abortion, opposed environmental regulation, opposed gun control and shown a fierce pro-business agenda, among other things.

Huntsman and politicians like him may be the best shot the GOP has if it wishes to survive in the future.

Until then, Republicans will continue to be what Huntsman has previously described as “a very narrow party of angry people.”

Republicans should note that, as revealed by Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina, Mitt Romney was not the Mormon the administration feared the most in 2012.

­— edsalas@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Eduardo Salas on Twitter @seibbe.