Huntsman withdraws his campaign, endorses Romney...

Hi friends

Jon Huntsman, one of the top-6 Republican candidates, announced his decision to withdraw from the Presidential Race, a few days ago. He did not campaign in Iowa, and had staked virtually everything on making a strong showing in New Hampshire. The breakout moment that eluded him, and his poor showing (a 3^rd place) did not do good to enhance his image as a candidate likely to beat President Obama.

Jon Huntsman for 2016?
 Let's pray he makes a comeback!

“The race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the American people,” Huntsman said at a press conference in Myrtle Beach, S.C. “I call on each campaign to cease attacking each other and instead talk directly to the American people about how our conservative ideas will create American jobs.” His withdrawal from the race came the morning after he received an endorsement from The State, the largest newspaper in South Carolina. They called Mr Huntsman and Mr Romney the "two sensible, experienced grown-ups in the race'', but said the former ambassador was "more principled" and offered "a significantly more important message''.

And so he did. When he was criticized by Romney himself for working for the Obama Administration as the Ambassador to China, he replied "Yes, under a Democrat. Like my two sons are doing in the United States Navy. They're not asking what political affiliation the president is.I will always put my country first." - the last two words became the campaign slogan for Jon. Unfortunately, that does not resonate well with the Republican Base.

A brief look at his profile shows that Jon Huntsman was a very different Republican Candidate, one of the good guys, one of the sane guys. In the 1990s, he became the youngest head of a US diplomatic mission for a century when he was appointed ambassador in Singapore. He was attacked for reasons that did not relate to his policy. He was called a “stooge” of the Obama administration and “The Manchurian Candidate” because of his being a former ambassador to China, a position to which he was appointed by none other than President Obama. An ambassador to every country works for the parent country, not any given administration. All federal employees owe their loyalty to the people, not the guy who hires or appoints them (who after all is there on our behalf). This stint also showed him as one of the most sensible candidates (in the last 2-3 elections) on U.S. foreign policy, including toward Asia. While Newt Gingrich imagined the Palestinians to be an “invented people” and Rick Santorum wanted to bomb Iran as soon as possible, Huntsman took a more moderate approach, which perhaps proved to be his undoing. He was criticised for adopting children from India and China, and bringing them up in their original religions. As the Diplomat put it quite clearly, “It was probably this refusal to pander to the Republican base that meant he failed to gain any traction in the primaries”. Perhaps the race had one Mormon too many.

The Atlantic blames the conservative media and Jon’s own campaign strategies for Huntsman’s withdrawal. He, quite simply, was a pragmatist. Although he stood out from the rest of the Republican presidential pack as an intelligent voice of reason, diplomacy and international expertise, these were simply the wrong times for him to have stood for the President of the USA. As the Diplomat put it, his withdrawal cuts serious by half. Jon Huntsman was popular enough with independents and even with some liberals. Had he been nominated, he would have given President Obama some serious competition, thanks to his record.

What next?

  

His exit from the race leaves five candidates remaining: Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich as the three main candidates chasing Romney's lead, and Rick Perry trailing in the polls. Polls show that even South Carolina's (whose primary is scheduled for the 21st of this month) conservative vote has not yet settled on one particular candidate (just like the ones in Iowa and New Hampshire).

Gingrich, Santorum and Perry have all suggested that Romney's campaign is benefiting from the fractured social conservative support base. With the departure of Jon Huntsman, the “Anybody-But-Mitt” movement looks more toothless right now. And with Santorum, Perry and Gingrich refusing to budge, it would take some real miracle to stop Mitt Romney’s nomination.

Note: There is a very interesting article that came in the BBC News titled “Are the Republican candidates all crazy?”, a question that does come to mind when you think about Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry in detail. One of the reasons mentioned was that most of the serious candidates were ducking the fight in 2012, not willing to inherit an economy that would take years to recover. Perhaps it was wrong time for Huntsman too, he would have made a fine President I guess. I wanted to write about this too, but then the article serves its purpose well enough hence sharing it.

Varun Reddy.

Does religion matter?

Does religion matter?

(c) The Colbert Report

Religion has played a important part in politics worldwide, and it has been no different in the US Presidential Elections. Although the early elections (pre Civil War) were not fought on the religious platform, the last few elections has seen the rise of religious beliefs of the candidate as an important parameter. Religious affiliation of the candidate came into prominence in 2008 when Barack Obama was accused by some as being a Muslim by birth.

The following graph clearly shows how the %age representation of various religious denominations in the United States has changed dramatically over the course of history.

Religion	%age of Population	No. of presidents	%age of Presidents
Christian	78.4%	37	86%
Evangelical Protestant	26.3%	Baptist (4)	44.2%
		Methodist (3)
		Presbyterian (6)
		Quakers (2)
		Unitarian (4)
Mainline Protestant	18.1%	Congregationalist (1)	39.5%
		Dutch Reformed (2)
		Disciples of Christ (3)
		Episcopalian (11)
Black Church	6.9%	0	--
Catholic	23.9%	Roman Catholic (1)	2.3%
Mormon	1.7%	0	--
Jehovah's Witness	0.7%	0	--
Eastern Orthodox	0.6%	0	--
Other Christian	0.3%	0	--
Unaffiliated	16.1%	6	14%
Non-Christian Religions	4.7%	0	--
Don't know/refused answer	0.8%	0	--

Source: Wikipedia

Although there have been close to 40% Mainline Protestant Presidents, they make up no more than18% of the population. A similar case can be seen with the Evangelical Protestants. It is quite interesting to note that John F. Kennedy is the only Catholic ever to be elected the President of the USA in spite of Catholics making up nearly 24% of the electorate, the single largest denomination with no sub-denominations.

According to Wikipedia, Episcopalians are extraordinarily well represented among the presidents, compared to a current membership of about 2% of the population – partly because the Episcopal Church had been the Church of England before the American Revolution and was the state religion in some states (such as New York and Virginia). The first seven presidents listed as Episcopalians were all from Virginia. Unitarians and Quakers are also overrepresented, reflecting the importance of those colonial churches. Conversely, Baptists are underrepresented, a reflection of their quite recent expansion in numbers.

Among the current Republican candidates, two of the frontrunners come from the same Mormom faith, which makes up 1.7% of the electorate. They are Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman (who’ll start his campaign from the New Hampshire primaries scheduled to start in less than 10 hours). Now why does this affect the campaign in any way? That is because of the controversies that have surrounded their faith from time to time.

The Boston Globe and USA Today talked about the faith-adherence of both these candidates. While Romney is highly active and orthodox who has embraced the Mormon church quite unequivocally, Huntsman has called his adherence to Mormon practices “tough to define” and has described himself as someone who gets “satisfaction from many different types of religions and philosophies.’’

The Atlantic has attributed the Romney’s and Huntsman’s moderate stands on various issues to their religion, saying that the fourth largest denomination in the U.S. and the one richest per capita, has come of age at the national level. Although the state of Utah is overwhelmingly Mormon (60-60%), it also contains a constituency of liberal and moderate voters, and the influence of that demographic has been reflected in the more liberal positions taken by Huntsman on social issues (He came out in favour of gay civil unions). On a similar note, the Deseret News has reported that the fact that Romney and Huntsman are currently the only two Republican presidential candidates who embrace mainstream science on climate change and evolution is no coincidence and can be attributed to the absence of any official statement from the Mormon-church on this issue.

The state of Utah, despite having only 2.8 million people, was Mr. Romney’s third biggest source of money in 2008 — after Massachusetts, where he had been governor, and California — contributing more than $5.5 million. Mr. Romney also raised significant money in heavily Mormon areas of the West outside Utah, particularly in Idaho (26% Mormon) and Arizona (5% Mormon). In the 2008 Republican presidential primary in Utah, he got almost 90 percent of the vote. However, as governor of Utah, Huntsman’s pro-business agenda (cut taxes, balanced the state budget and reduce business regulations) was more successful with a conservative Utah legislature. The local economy boomed and many out-of-state businesses flocked to relocate to his state. Utah was rated the best managed state by the Pew Center on the States during Huntsman’s tenure (2005-2009). Huntsman was also a hit with the Democrats of Utah.

But if one of them actually wins the Republican nomination, he could have a hard time convincing the national voters. A Gallup poll released in June showed that 22% of Americans would not vote for their political party's presidential nominee next year if that person is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). The percentage of those unwilling to vote for a Mormon has remained largely unchanged since 1967. However, this could be because never has in American history have two Mormon candidates stood for elections. Past Gallup polls found that in 1959, the year before the voters elected the first Catholic U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, one-quarter of Americans said they would not vote for a Catholic. That opposition fell to 21 percent by 1960 and to 13 percent by August 1961, Gallup reported. May be America will finally warm up to the idea of having a Mormon-president :)

Many other factors will surely come into play, factors like party loyalty or pocketbook concerns. As the Huffington Post claims, for Republicans beating Obama could be the most important factor of all. It is very possible that White evangelicals will more likely vote Republican, even if the party nominates someone who isn't known for strong faith commitments. So is quite prudent to say that faith will surely play an important role in determining the next President of the United States, just as it always has!

Varun Reddy.