Forever 1960....

NOTE: This post was accidentally deleted, then re-posted. So the comments are lost! Sorry. Feel free to comment again.

Huntsman, Trapped In 2009, Never Had A Chance:

...There was, though, another argument: Republicans should hold firm, and wait for the Obama delusion to subside. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Congressional "Party of No" made this bet, big, in February of 2009, when they voted en masse against the stimulus. Huntsman found himself immediately isolated inside his party, as opposition trumped modernization. And the Tea Party rose up to cheer the most strident reaction against Obama.

Huntsman wasn't alone in his fantasy though. The White House, too, feared a Republican Party that reacted against Obama by moving to the middle, and saw Huntsman as the logical future of the GOP. That May, Obama named him Ambassador to Beijing, taking a threat out of the picture.

That didn't actually take Huntsman out of the picture. And, in retrospect, it was absurd to think that Obama needed to worry about a man so wildly out of step with his party. Huntsman's campaign has been, from the beginning, a fantasy driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of his own party. ("I still don't understand why [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm [Emanuel] was so obsessed with him," a top Democratic official marveled Sunday night.)

The party Huntsman imagined -- modernizing, reforming, and youthful -- could still be born. That might be the reaction to a second smashing defeat at Obama's hands, or that might be where President Romney takes his re-election campaign. But it's now hard to see Huntsman leading that change. He bet, too early, on a fantasy, and ran for the nomination of a party that doesn't exist, at least not yet. His decision tonight to drop out just marks his recognition of that fact....

"a fantasy driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of his own party." I'd say, no, it was a fantasy driven by the fantasy worldview promoted by leftists and the "press." A crazy dreamworld where the Democrats are forever nominating young modern JFK to dazzle us with exciting new government programs, while Republicans remain mired in the Depression era. Of course the truth is it is Dems who are stuck in the 1930's. They had a burst of ideas back then, and have coasted on them ever since. And now they've run through their inheritance, and can only pretend we are still in the Industrial Age, or the Civil Rights Era.

"The party Huntsman imagined -- modernizing, reforming, and youthful -- could still be born." Well, it is already born, or starting to be born, and it clearly terrifies the stuffed-shirt "insiders" of both parties.... or we would be looking at Palin/West 2012!