President Obama named Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. (R) as his ambassador to China, said Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic, which “can only be called a genius move” by Obama, and a “terrible blow to the GOP.” A “pro-civil union Mormon who gets the problem of climate change,” Huntsman is “the un-Cheney.” So, in one stroke, Obama has "co-opted” one of the GOP’s rising moderates and rid himself of a potential political rival.
I’m not sure that “Obama co-opted Huntsman,” said Dennis Sanders in The Moderate Voice. It’s just as likely that Huntsman saw no viable path to national office as a Republican, with the “Limbaugh wing of the party” calling the shots. Huntsman probably decided that “dealing with the Chinese is far easier than dealing with Sean Hannity.”
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