Kiss Another Reformist Goodbye

Jon Huntsman will resign as governor of Utah to accept a posting as ambassador to China.

It's a fine appointment from the point of view of the national interests of the United States. Huntsman speaks the language and knows the region (he previously served as ambassador to Singapore). His standing as a former governor and a possible future presidential candidate will enhance his clout in a capital where clout matters.

It's a brilliant appointment from the point of view of the political interests of Barack Obama. Gov. Huntsman's intellect, his popularity in his state, his undoubted conservatism combined with his open-minded new approaches on social issues and the environment - not to mention his enormous personal wealth - positioned him as the natural leader of the reform forces within the GOP. By sending him across the Pacific, President Obama has acted deftly to enhance the continuing dominance of the Republican faction that serves him best. The Limbaugh-Obama axis wins again!

From Huntsman's point of view, it's difficult to read his acceptance of this nomination as anything other than an assessment of the hopelessness of the 2012 cycle for him personally and Republicans generally. The enthusiasm we feel for him here at NewMajority has not to date proven infectious: The Republican party of Kent County, Michigan, outright cancelled an event rather than host the governor.

"The voters want and expect us to stand on principle and return to our roots. Unfortunately, by holding an event with Governor Huntsman, we would be doing the exact opposite," [county party chairwoman Joanne] Voorhees wrote in an e-mail quoted in The Grand Rapids Press.

(Benjamin Franklin had an apt comment on people like Ms. Voorhees: "Experience is a hard teacher, but fools will have no other." I should have thought that the 2006 and 2008 elections were experience enough for anyone, but apparently many Republicans insist on still more.)

Four years of serving his country in a challenging posting seems as creditable a way as any of opting out of the political cycle. In 2016, Huntsman will be 56. He'll have been twice elected governor of a state, twice served in important international assignments - including one of the most important of them all. His understanding of environmental issues will be sharpened by his service, ditto his already sophisticated mastery of the international economic issues that will matter more and more. Odds are that by then even conservative Republicans will have worked their way to accepting a compromise on social issues that looks more or less like the one Huntsman has evolved for himself.

It's only sad that it looks like it will have to be such an unnecessarily long and frustrating wait.