After weeks of rumors, U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, the former Republican Governor of Utah, will be stepping down from his position in April – though it's uncertain if he'll then follow up on those rumors and run against his current boss for President.
Newsweek was the first media organization to report that the former Republican Governor of Utah was considering such a monumental move, and Politico reported earlier this week that Huntsman spoke with John McCain about a possible run over the holidays, and is expected to make his decision before the summer.
Already considered an up and comer, it was considered politically extremely shrewd when Obama co-opted presumably any thought of Huntsman running in 2012 by placing him in his Cabinet (the same way he took out his only presumed serious potential challenger to run against him in a Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton, when she took him up on his offer to become his Secretary of State).
But then again, there's a lot that we don't know about Huntsman, other than he's a Mormon, which proved somewhat problematic for Mitt Romney you might recall in 2008.
There's been a lot of ink on Huntman's possible run, and how difficult it might be for him to win a GOP primary in 2012, when the candidates that seem to get the party faithful most animated (Huckabee, Palin) are hardly the moderate sort, which is always a handicap in a primary election.
The best story on Huntsman and his potential candidacy is in The Hill, which says if he were to run, it "would be one of the most unconventional presidential campaigns in modern political history," as he would be facing the odd challenge of trashing Obama's domestic policies while defending it's foreign policy, as he served as an ambassador with the country considered America's biggest competitor, China.
This article appears in Jan 27 – Feb 2, 2011.