WE CERTAINLY KNOW ONE THING IOWANS AREN’T GOING TO PICK…

12/31/11

I posted the following comment on Jon Huntsman’s campaign website’s blog:


Even though I would hardly be classified as a moderate Republican, I have long been intrigued by the candidacy of Jon Huntsman. In Mr. Huntsman, I saw a man who truly believes in the basic tenets to which other GOPers only profess fealty, such as small government, individualism, free enterprise, the power of communities to solve problems that the government can only exacerbate, and a foreign policy that truly advances the interests of the United States rather than its defense contractors. While I have long supported Ron Paul and will probably continue in this practice in 2012, I have to admit, however, that my loyalties in this year’s presidential sweepstakes were somewhat divided…until Mr. Huntsman’s comments on Iowa.

While I live in the suburbs of Chicago, I am an Iowan at heart. As an alum of the University of Iowa, a father of a U of I student, and a relative by marriage of a farm kid from outside of Shenandoah who is one of the best people I know, I have grown to love the Hawkeye state. Why on earth did Jon Hunstman, a normally sensible and sober minded fellow, a family man and a successful businessman who would seemingly have a great deal in common with the hardworking and almost eerily friendly and helpful people of Iowa, have to fire his gratuitous dig “In New Hampshire, they pick presidents; in Iowa they pick corn”?

A man with Mr. Huntsman’s intellect could have easily said something like “New Hampshire’s voters have a much better history of selecting the eventual GOP nominee than do Iowa caucus participants. Given the disparate track records of the two states in the nominating process, while I regret not spending more time in the Hawkeye state, I have to focus my campaign’s limited resources in the Granite State.” But, no, Mr. Huntsman had to make his snotty comment about Iowans’ picking corn. Perhaps he really does have a deep down disdain for people who are welcoming, friendly, intelligent, genuinely good, and embody the values of family and community that made this country great. If this is the case, any honesty he displayed by his comments regarding Iowans would be trumped by the hypocrisy he shows any time he professes his love for the very values Iowans embody.

Mr. Huntsman’s people will doubtless counter with disingenuous contentions disguised as questions like “What’s wrong with picking corn? Mr. Huntsman supports the efforts of Iowa’s, and America’s, farmers.” But such a retort would only further the impression that Mr. Huntsman thinks the good people of Iowa, who feed much of the nation and the world, who participate in a vibrant and dynamic economy that transcends its agricultural roots, and who exemplify the types of values that our country must retain, or rediscover, if we are to survive as a society, are a pack of yokels who are incapable of seeing past a condescending, disingenuous attitude and detect when they are being insulted.

Since Mr. Huntsman finds it appropriate to denigrate a state that ought to be emulated rather than castigated, I find it impossible to support this man for the nation’s highest, or any, office.