Team Huntsman: GOP Field is Weak

Time reports:

So careful that he's disinclined to weigh in on any matter on which he hasn't been fully briefed or made up his mind, Huntsman is nonetheless plenty open about wanting to compete for Obama's job. Already he's in primary-season mode, moderating his previously moderate views by praising the Tea Party as "a very legitimate manifestation of people's anger and frustration in where we are today" and junking his support for the regional cap-and-trade carbon-emissions pact he and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger once championed. "It hasn't worked," he says now, "and our economy's in a different place than five years ago." Until it recovers, he adds, "this isn't the moment" to keep trying.

While some Republican hopefuls have failed or are still trying to coax their loved ones onto the campaign bus, Huntsman's wife and their seven children are more than ready for a yearlong road trip that could begin as soon as June. "I would be extremely excited" if he ran, his daughter Liddy, 23, says. "He'd be the ultimate fresh face." ("Thanks, chief," he tells her in his usual soothing sotto voce style.)

Certainly, his party is in the market for one of those; competition was so modest at the first GOP presidential debate of the season that the sole top-tier contender who showed, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, was begging for a rival who could help him keep his skills up. As Huntsman's would-be campaign manager John Weaver tells me, "This is the weakest Republican field since Wendell Willkie won the nomination on the sixth ballot in 1940." ...

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