“With Huntsman gone,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl despaired Monday night, “the field of Republican candidates has lost the only candidate who favored civil unions for gay couples and said he was concerned about climate change.” In his World News report, Karl recalled how Hunstman once “tweeted: ‘To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.’”
Over on the CBS Evening News, Jan Crawford noted how Huntsman was more popular with the news media than with Republicans: “Huntsman’s campaign never really took off, except among newspaper editorial boards.”
Jon Huntsman
By Brent Baker | January 16, 2012 | 8:12 PM EST
By Mark Finkelstein | January 16, 2012 | 7:21 AM EST
Tuning in Morning Joe today, I half expected to discover on the set some professional mourners imported from North Korea, keening and crying over the political demise of Jon Huntsman.
Huntsman had had the Morning Joe crowd from hello. The overwhelming winner of the bien-pensant MSM primary was amazingly popular—except with actual Republican voters, who didn't dig his moderate positioning and a tone that some found . . . well, how do you say "supercilious" in Mandarin? Taking today's cake was Joe Scarborough finding Huntsman's "moderate temperament" Reaganesque, and claiming that in rejecting Huntsman, Republicans have "turned their backs" on Ronald Reagan. Video after the jump.
By Noel Sheppard | January 11, 2012 | 12:50 PM EST
Former New Hampshire governor John Sununu on Wednesday scolded the media for falling in love with Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman.
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Sununu said, “The fact is you missed the whole story here” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | January 10, 2012 | 8:20 PM EST
On Monday, Tonight Show host Jay Leno introduced America to Jack Taylor, a remarkable seven-year-old with an uncannily keen insight into politics.
After telling Leno that he doesn’t like President Obama because “all he does is spend, spend, spend,” Taylor took to rating the Republican presidential candidates (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | January 10, 2012 | 10:52 AM EST
As NewsBusters has been reporting, Chris Matthews has clearly joined the Anyone But Romney for Republican presidential nominee crowd.
Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe Tuesday, the Hardball host enthusiastically endorsed one of the former Massachusetts governor's New Hampshire primary rivals actually saying on live television, "If I were voting here I’d vote for Huntsman because he’s American" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Brent Baker | January 6, 2012 | 1:48 PM EST
An hour before CNN screamed “Breaking News” Thursday night over the Boston Globe’s endorsement of Jon Huntsman (basically for not being “pushed” to the right like Mitt Romney), the CBS Evening News trumpeted the presidential bid by Huntsman who “has flown under the radar, despite his impressive resume. He's the chopper-riding popular two-term Governor of Utah with a picture-perfect family...”
Reporter Bill Whitaker’s glowing story hailed Huntsman’s economic plan as “deemed best of the campaign by the Wall Street Journal,” before approvingly touting: “Unlike most of the Republican field, he believes humans contribute to climate change.” Whitaker soon cued up Huntsman to confirm: “You’ve also called yourself ‘the sane Republican.’”
By Kyle Drennen | January 6, 2012 | 12:59 PM EST
On Friday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer highlighted The Boston Globe endorsement of Jon Huntsman, and noted how, "Joe Klein in Time magazine wrote this about him...'He has proposed the most thoughtful roster of policy initiatives of any candidate in the race.'" Lauer then wondered: "People say this guy is a great candidate. Why hasn't he broken through?...why aren't more people talking about him?"
Lauer directed that question to Meet the Press host David Gregory, who explained: "I just think that a lot of people view him as slightly discordant in this particular primary season. He doesn't have Tea Party support, he's certainly not a favorite among the conservative base." Gregory added: "A lot of people like him who are taking a hard look, are enough people taking a hard look?"
By Noel Sheppard | December 13, 2011 | 12:08 PM EST
MSNBC's supposedly conservative host Joe Scarborough on Tuesday continued his months-long attack on the Republican presidential candidates.
After telling his Morning Joe viewers that he would consider voting for potential third party candidate Ron Paul if Newt Gingrich won the nomination, Scarborough said he could "in five minutes write a list of 200 Republican members of the House of Representatives" more qualified than "the presidential candidates that are running right now" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Amanpour Despairs ‘Sanest’ Huntsman with ‘Eminently Sensible Positions’ Losing to ‘Bombastic’ Gingrich
By Brent Baker | December 11, 2011 | 3:21 PM EST
ABC’s Christiane Amanpour just can’t comprehend why Jon Huntsman, with his “eminently sensible” anti-conservative positions, could be losing to Newt Gingrich who is full of “bombast” and “does say some pretty alarming things, some might say outrageous things.” More upsetting, Hunstman is supposedly “reversing” himself on those “eminently sensible positions.”
Interviewing Huntsman, who appeared from the Granite State, Amanpour noted on Sunday’s This Week that “you are at the bottom of the pack despite the fact that some independents, for instance, in New Hampshire call you the sanest one running,” yet “ what you’re offering does not seem to be resonating. It appears that the Newt Gingrich, sort of bombast and brash in your face against Obama, is what’s resonating.”
By Matt Hadro | December 10, 2011 | 3:35 PM EST
CNN's liberal anchor Fareed Zakaria whacked Republicans in an interview clip that aired on CNN Friday, asserting that the GOP primary "wants people to say incendiary things." Zakaria's full interview with faux-conservative presidential candidate Jon Huntsman will air Sunday on Fareed Zakaria GPS.
Zakaria set the table for Huntsman, the liberal media's favorite GOP candidate, to blister the rhetoric of the GOP field as unsustainable. "[T]here is a market for people to say slightly outrageous things," Zakaria noted of the GOP primary. "So you just refuse to say those kinds of incendiary things?" he asked of Huntsman.
By Noel Sheppard | December 3, 2011 | 11:13 AM EST
The liberals on PBS's Inside Washington Friday were all giddy at the thought of Newt Gingrich as the Republican presidential nominee.
So sure this would be good news for the president he adores, syndicated columnist and PBS fixture Mark Shields said this would result in the "landslide reelection victory of Barack Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Matt Hadro | November 22, 2011 | 6:03 PM EST
Was Brooke Baldwin's kid-glove treatment of candidate Jon Huntsman a harbinger of things to come in CNN's Tuesday night debate? The CNN host tossed the liberal media's favorite GOP candidate softball after softball in a Tuesday afternoon interview – while conservative candidate Michele Bachmann was asked Tuesday morning if she regretted running for president.
In an cushy interview during the 3 p.m. hour of Newsroom, Baldwin heaped praise on the Republican who supports same-sex civil unions and who ripped conservatives as "anti-science" for not believing in global warming. The CNN host fawned over Huntsman's "lovely" daughters and slobbered that "you seem pretty unflappable, and if I may, governor, downright nice."