Weekend press and more info on Hunstman

The New York Post ran a piece on Romney on Saturday, in which it was shown how much he flipflops...I guess that is how he got to be a red governor in a blue state.
On Sunday, the New York Times did a feature on Huntsman, and yet again, an underlying theme there was, who is this guy? Even his campaign staff do not seem to know; many of them have just met him for the first time.
Matt Bai hangs out with him for a few days and gives us a view of the happenings, which are very illuminating. What I make of it is that Huntsman is a rather capable bloke in many fields, and I have a respect for him as he learned the Chinese language and culture. Or I ought to be more specific and say he learned Mandarin and the Chinese culture. And by way of digression, I might just add that this has become a very useful language to learn if you want a job...but getting back to our speaker of Mandarin, who is looking for a job on Pennsylvania Avenue, I think that despite this qualification, he will best serve the US as a diplomat, political analyst, governor of his native state, or, as the article suggest he might be looking at himself, in the post of VP. I see nothing to really dislike in him, and those voters whom he met found him an affable fellow; however, they did not find answers to specific questions on policies, and this did not sit too well with the likes of Travis Blais, the GOP chairman in Windham, New Hampshire. "His attitude seems to be, 'Well, I'm just up here introducing myself to people, and I'll let you know what my positions are later," Blais told the NYT; Blais summed it up with: " Frankly, people noticed...people said, 'Nice guy, very smart, but I have no idea what he thinks.' "
So there. Not quite presidential, but not a bad fish. Nate Silver, a politics blogger for the NYT, opined that Huntsman has not more than a remote chance of scoring the nomination. Even with the vast wealth of his father, who by the way invented the clamshell takeaway containter, he will most likely not be able to convince people to give him the #1 job in America, even if he does speak Mandarin.

Debate in New Hampshire

This week started with seven GOP candidates hashing it out in New Hampshire, where next year they will return to be picked or set aside. The debate was not much to watch, Gingrich avoided all mention of
his aides quitting, and Pawlenty avoided attacking Romney's health care; and Palin avoided being there at all.
Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg, writing about it yesterday in the New York Times (pp. A1/A12) noted that she was praised by Pawlenty, who noted she was a remarkable leader...will he pick her as a VP? Just saying....
Michele Bachmann made an appearance for the gentler sex, using the occasion to announce her run, and taking a poke at US involvement in Libya - which is now past the sell-by-date, and well past the time it can be allowed to go on without Congressional approval - a strong point with Ron Paul; who was not much mentioned by the Grey Lady, but who, in my opinion, came off the best in the debate, simply by being rational and showing political experience; of which Herman Cain, who runs a pizza chain, had none - but that does not stop him from aspiring to run the US. He came under fire for some of his remarks about Moslems being 'not totally dedicated to this country'.
Sadly, the paper gave more attention to people who had problems, or who did not even show up. So my only regret about Dr Paul's performance was that it did not get its share of attention, but as to his policies, I am sure they will persuade more people than any of the others. We shall see. We're off to a slow start and things will get more intense in the months to come.