Paul Holmes Interviews Jon Huntsman
Paul Holmes Interviews Jon Huntsman
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GOVERNOR JON HUNTSMAN
Interviewed by PAUL HOLMES
PAUL
We’ve got an exclusive interview with Jon Hunstman, who
was US ambassador to China – a Republican – under
President Obama and is considered moderate by today’s
Republican standards. So I interviewed Jon Hunstman
yesterday, and I began by reminding him that he once
described Mitt Romney as lacking a core and asked him what
he makes of Mitt Romney now.
GOVERNOR JON
HUNTSMAN – Former US Presidential Candidate
Well, I think his strength is certainly the fact that he
comes from the private sector. He’s been in business.
He’s been a governor. He understands how jobs are created.
I think that’s a real strength. Now, clearly, on the
liability side of the page might be that he signed a few too
many pledges or maybe been on both sides of too many issues,
but I think in the final analysis, Americans, during this
time of economic despair, they’re going to look for
somebody who can address the unemployment problem, who can
address our competitiveness needs and do the kinds of
things, Paul, that are going to get this country back on its
feet from a competitive standpoint and a job-growth
standpoint. I think Governor Romney probably is best
positioned to do that.
PAUL
To be fair to Barack Obama, though, he inherited a
basket-case economy, and the employment numbers are looking
good. Can’t Obama do this?
MR
HUNTSMAN Well, he did inherit a troubling
situation, and I think in America we do ourselves a
disservice by pointing the finger of blame at any one
particular party. We’ve got $15 trillion to $16 trillion
in debt. It just didn’t grow under one administration.
Certainly, it’s grown at an historic pace the last few
years. But the fact of the matter is here in America,
Americans are looking for solutions. They don’t want
finger-pointing. They don’t want extreme partisanship.
They want solutions. And I suspect that the election will
largely be tied to the direction the economy is going later
in the year, so if unemployment, for example, has a 7 in
front of it, I think the President will be in a stronger
position. If the GDP numbers come out stronger than they are
– better than 3%, for example – then I think that is to
the benefit of the President. But in the end, I do believe
it’s going to be a discussion about who’s prepared to
create jobs and get this economy moving again, and then who
can appeal to that middle demographic. People forget that
the fastest-growing party in America is the unaffiliated
party. It isn’t the Republicans; it isn’t the Democrats
– it’s the unaffiliated party. And they’re going to
watch and remain kind of aloof until the very end, I
suspect. And then they’re going to climb on to one of the
candidates who best addresses some of their needs, and I
think this election cycle, that’s mostly going to be
economics and jobs.
PAUL
That’s correct, the danger of the uncommitted voter.
Governor, America and the world – you were appointed as a
Republican, which is a strange thing. Obama appointed you
United States ambassador to China. And you’ve spoken
dramatically of how you started to see America once you got
into China. I mean, it’s amazing that we still call China
a developing country, isn’t it? And you saw one country as
ascendant – that is to say China – and one on the brink
of collapse. Explain how you saw America and China.
MR HUNTSMAN Well, you can’t help but,
when you walk the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, as I did
on a regular basis as the US ambassador to China, feeling
the energy and the buzz and the excitement. There’s a lot
of blue sky, figuratively speaking. They think their day has
arrived They’ve had 30 years of GDP growth of 8%, 9%, 10%.
I’ve lived in Asia four times during my lifetime, and
I’ve seen the rise of China up close and very personally.
And you can’t help but reflect 10,000 miles away on the
United States, with all of its intrinsic advantages –
which still, I think, are very real – being a little bit
down, and, as I would say, in a funk. We’re kind of
trading at a low ebb right now, although I do feel that our
spirits are being lifted a little bit by recent economic
performances. But when you stop to look at the United States
vis-à-vis China, I wouldn’t trade our challenges for
their challenges any day. In fact, I suspect that the United
States could very well be on the cusp of a manufacturing
renaissance, if we play our cards right. If we are smart
about tax reform, as I think Governor Romney will be; if
we’re smart about the regulatory issues that are impeding
the marketplace; if we work on things like job training and
vocational skill development, something this country did
very well many years ago and we’ve kind of lost connection
with, I think manufacturing is going to return in part to
the United States. But a lot of the manufacturing that years
ago would have left to go to where the grass is greener
economically will choose to stay here in the United States,
and I think that’s going to be to the benefit of a younger
generation of Americans today who are getting out of school
and out of college and wondering where their jobs going to
come from.
PAUL
Anyway, you do your service in China, Governor, and you come
back to the United States. Were you amazed at what you saw
of the Republican Party when you came back?
MR
HUNTSMAN Well, I was amazed at the division,
the multiple divisions within the party. Now, I grew up in a
party that was pretty unified around smaller government;
free-market economics; a strong, confident foreign policy
and defence; confident engagement with the rest of the
world, and I see a party developing that is a bit fractured
in that fractured in that regard – divided in terms of
foreign policy...
PAUL
Well, it’s more than fractured, isn’t it? I mean, it’s
tearing itself apart, Governor. It’s torn itself apart.
MR HUNTSMAN Well, that’s one of
the reasons you have what I described earlier – this
phenomenon called the fastest-growing party in America being
the unaffiliated party. So you’ve got a lot of people who
would, in years gone by, naturally have felt very
comfortable within the Republican Party, who are saying,
“I think I’m going to wait it out, and I’m going to
vote for the individual, regardless of party affiliation,
and I’m going to look very closely at the issues.” So I
would argue that in today’s party-centric world, you know,
the duopoly – the Republican Party and the Democratic
Party, you know, they’ve got to stay relevant. They’ve
got to stay visionary. They’ve got to stay focused on
solutions, as opposed to just finger-pointing and assigning
the blame game, or you’re going to have some different
angle of attack from a third-party movement or a
fourth-party movement that will give them a run for the
money. That’s just the way the free market of politics
works.
PAUL
And that’s a theme of yours.
MR
HUNTSMAN I think the American people are
rightly concerned about some of these issues.
PAUL
Indeed, that’s a theme of yours, this business of the
third party, but a third party – I mean, you might feel
there's an element of a third party with the non-committed
voting bloc, but the last time a new party came up the
middle was the Republican Party in 1860. That’s a long
time between beers, isn’t it?
MR
HUNTSMAN And, you know, why was it 1860 –
or more specifically in 1856, when John Fremont was the
first Republican to run. He just didn’t win. Abraham
Lincoln did win in 1860. But then, you know, you look at the
reform agenda of Theodore Roosevelt in the election of 1912,
where he garnered 25%, 26% of the vote. You can imagine what
he would have done if he had the power of the internet that
was behind his Bull Moose Party movement, in terms of
organising and fund-raising and projecting his reform
agenda. The point here, Paul, is that this nation is in need
of a full vetting of real options and solutions and a vision
going forward. We’ve got to get beyond the point of our
two party extremes with their backs to the wall pointing
fingers of blame at each other, and all the while, the
middle having been blown out of the system, nobody’s
getting the work of the people done. And I think that’s
going to reach 212-degree boiling point at some point, and
the American people are going to demand action and results
and movement in the right direction that gets this country
moving again by one of the parties, and if not one of the
parties, then perhaps an alternative movement.
PAUL
But there certainly was a distasteful kind of a campaign. I
mean, from the outside looking at your performance,
Governor, you seemed to struggle in those early debates
because you didn’t seem feral enough or partisan enough.
You had a terrible disease whereby you saw both sides of the
coin. Would you change that?
MR
HUNTSMAN No. I promised my wife at the very
beginning of the campaign. She said, “If you pander, if
you sign any of those silly damn pledges, I will leave
you.” I think I enjoy my marriage enough to want to keep
it intact. But, listen, it’s the reality of some of the
early primary states that makes it very difficult, and I
think of great concern to many voters in the United States
who find themselves in the middle They say, “When are our
issues going to be talked about? When are our voices going
to be heard?” There is too much pandering. There is too
much in the way of pledge-signing in those early primary
states, some exclusionary events that don’t encourage
broad-based turnout and participation. If we’re going to
make the system work in the United States, we need to
encourage everyone turning out and participating, and
particularly the young people – making sure that they’re
fully invested in the future of the country and fully
participating.
PAUL
Still, Governor, if I just go back to the Republican Party.
I mean, is it possible to hold the Republican Party in the
palm of one’s hand at the moment? I mean, can you express,
say, in a couple of sentences now what the Republican Party
is now? I mean, you spoke at Harvard the other night, said
the Republican Party’s not in a good place.
MR
HUNTSMAN I would say the Republican Party is
laser-like focused on debt. I think that has been a rallying
point for Republicans to date. But we’ve got to have a
bigger, bolder vision for the Republican Party if we’re
going to appeal to Americans across the board. It’s got to
be about debt. It’s got to be about growth. It’s got to
be about our role in the world – cleaning up the Middle
East, for example. And it’s got to be about education. We
can’t be afraid, as a party, to talk about things like
education and infrastructure – those issues that many in
the party aren’t willing to talk about right now, but
those issues that are inexorably linked to our ability to
compete in the 21st century.
PAUL
Governor, just finally, a bit of history. It was you who had
the honour of introducing the Alaskan governor Sarah Palin
to the Republican Convention about four and a half, five
years ago. What did you make of her then? What do you make
of her now?
MR HUNTSMAN She was a
populist, very popular governor, then two years in office,
and I knew her through my work as chair of the Western
Governors Association. I guess I was one of the few people
on the senior McCain team who had actually had some
interaction with her. And she came out of relative obscurity
to seize the moment, and was a very exciting figure in those
early days of the campaign, and I think she still today
represents a certain pent-up frustration and anger on the
part of many Americans as it relates to the inability of
government to get things done. That’s why she has a
following. That’s why she has a constituency. She might
not be revered by everybody, but I think she does represent
a certain level of anger and frustration on the part of
Americans.
PAUL
In the end, though, Governor, can Romney defeat the sheer
great qualities of communication which Obama has come
November? I mean, he’s an orator.
MR
HUNTSMAN Well, I would argue that Obama had
certain communication skills on the campaign trail of 2008,
but when he got into office, he didn’t have any skills at
all in terms of forming big policy ideas and putting them
forward. That’s where there was a disconnect, and that’s
where I think that Governor Romney is going to have some
real strengths, because he’s been in the world of policy
formulation, either as a governor or in business. So he
might not have the communication strength that Barack Obama
has immediately on the campaign trail, but I think his
strengths and his assets are going to be in managing our way
forward, given the problems that we face, and I think that
the American people are going to recognise that part.
PAUL
Governor Hunstman, I thank you very much indeed for your
time, and we’ll see what happens come November.
MR HUNTSMAN Paul, it’s a great pleasure to
be with you. Thank you for allowing me the
opportunity
ENDS