Jon Huntsman's newly launched presidential campaign blamed the New Jersey Port Authority for a series of snafus during its first day.
Jon Huntsman announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president today. In the process of making the announcement, CNN reported, his campaign experienced a series of problems such as misspelling its candidate's name and mislabeling the location of the announcement as New York instead of New Jersey on press passes.
When the press corps and campaign staff almost boarded a plane to Saudi Arabia instead of New Hampshire, the site of the campaign's next visit, staffers blamed the Port Authority.
Huntsman's first day jitters seem in line with problems, snafus and gaffes on the part of several Republican candidates in the past weeks, including Donal Trump's fiasco, Newt Gingrich's jewelry debts and campaign staff resignations, Sarah Palin's intervention on Mitt Romney's first day, and Tim Palwenty's gratuitous sneak attacks on Romney's policies.
Huntsman's hurdles to winning the nomination include his moderate positions on gay civil unions, abortion, environmental oversight and other high tension issues for cultural conservatives that comprise the hateful, active and vocal section of his party.
Probably worse is Huntsman role as an Obama appointee as ambassador to China. Republicans hate Obama. Some of them still think he is out to help countries with majority Islamic populations take over, as suggested by Texas crackpot Rep. Louie Ghomert.
So it is likely that a large portion of Republicans will view Huntsman as a Manchurian candidate.
If some Republicans can past that problem, others will be sure to disapprove of the role Hunstman played as ambassador to China, helping to bring that communist-led nation into a closer friendly relationship to the U.S.
So, say you're a China-loving, Obama-hating Republican, you're likely to take issue with a letter Huntsman wrote – by hand – to President Obama after his appointment as U.S. ambassador to China, in which the Republican candidate expressed glowing approval of President Obama's leadership: "You are a remarkable (underlined) leader," Huntsman wrote.
In addition, Huntsman glowingly praised Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her leadership in the Department of State. Huntsman also spread the love-fest to former President Bill Clinton, praising the one-time lodestone of Republican hate for his "sense of history and brilliant analysis of world events."
This candidacy is sure to fail, so one has to ask is Huntsman serious? Or is this simply an opportunity for the former Utah governor to gain some notoriety in order to launch a bid for some other office such as U.S. Senate from somewhere?