Speaking with the Statue of Liberty as a visual backdrop, Jon Huntsman, former Utah Governor and U.S. Ambassador to China under President Obama, officially declared Tuesday morning that he is the latest entrant into the Republican sweepstakes for president.

In his opening remarks, Huntsman said that he’ll conduct his campaign on the high road, and said he respected his fellow Republicans in the race, “and I respect the president. He and I have a difference of opinion on how to help the country we both love.”

That last comment has sent liberals running around tweeting that his lack of condemning Obama means he’s unelectable in the primaries. The National Journal’s Beth Reinhard has a story on Huntsman out today that asks if he’s the “Un-Republican“ in the race.

But in fact he does sound like Marco Rubio and Tim Pawlenty in asserting the greatness of American exceptionalism – all the vogue with Republicans in the Obama era. Check out this quote from today’s speech:

For the first time in our history, we are about to pass down to the next generation a country that is less powerful, less compassionate, less competitive and less confident than the one we got.

This is totally unacceptable and totally un-American.

And it NEED not, MUST not, WILL not be our permanent condition. We will not be the first American generation that lets down the next generation.

This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2011.