Huntsman on West Coast Swing

The San Francisco Chronicle reports

Republican Jon Huntsman Jr., the former U.S. ambassador to China, has a political profile that sets him apart from the pack of possible 2012 GOP presidential candidates. For starters, he starred in a 2004 advertisement with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lobbying for congressional action on climate change.

Huntsman, a former Utah governor, also boasts solid roots in California. He was born in Palo Alto, where his grandfather was mayor and a small businessman, and he was raised until age 11 in Los Angeles.

"I'm a true native of the Bay Area," Huntsman said Tuesday in San Francisco, as he raced between meetings with top fundraisers and GOP supporters at the start of a three-day California political swing, his first outside the East Coast. "I'm more of a native than you guys."

In an interview with The Chronicle Tuesday, Huntsman said he doesn't regret the TV spot for the Environmental Defense Fund, in which he starred with fellow Republican Schwarzenegger and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat.

"Now's the time for Congress to act in capping greenhouse gas pollution," Huntsman said in the ad, wearing a bomber jacket and standing at the ocean's edge before a gauzy sunset.