Huntsman endorses Romney
Article added on January 16, 2012 at 10:56 Swiss time
  
According to a Jon Huntsman staffer, the GOP presidential primaries will loose another candidate. Today, the moderate Huntsman endorses Romney, the other moderate Republican in the race.

The former Utah-governor Jon Huntsman is a sort of younger Romney: a moderate, a Mormon, an ex-governor, a rich man with business credentials. He would have been a reasonable candidate for the office of the president of the United States. Unfortunately, a large part of the Republican voters is inclined to vote for candidates with extreme views.

Jon Huntsman's endorsement of Mitt Romney is welcome in the sense that Romney is the last reasonable GOP candidate in the field. Other candidates may well be able to win a GOP primary, but not a presidential election against Obama.

Jon Huntsman drops out of the race because he has not managed to win the support of a substantial part of the GOP voters. Huntsman did not run in Iowa, but in New Hampshire, he managed to finish third behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. The 17% in New Hampshire may have looked like an encouraging sign to some, but a Super PAC largely financed by Huntsman's billionaire father had pumped important sums into Jon's New Hampshire campaign. The Huntsman camp had bet on that state, where Jon had campaigned more than any other GOP candidate. The strategy fell flat. He only managed to finish a distant third. The had hoped to win there. Furthermore, in the conservative South Carolina were voters will go to the polls next Saturday, Huntsman is only credited with 4% of voter intentions.

The very rich Jon Huntsman could surely have continued his campaign until Florida. Why has he decided to quit now? Does he not want to split the votes between him and Romney? The two moderates could block each other. Or has he simply come to the conclusion that this time is not his time, that it is better to endorse Romney, the only reasonable candidate in the GOP field with a chance to beat Obama, before Romney gets damaged too much by negative campaigning by former speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Governor Rich Perry? Anyway, it is good news for Romney and for anyone remained reasonable in the Republican Party.

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