Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman entered the 2012 race for president today by channeling images of President Ronald Reagan, only to draw sharp criticism from radio host Rush Limbaugh who called Huntsman “a RINO (Republican in Name Only) pretending to be Reagan.”
 Jon Huntsman announcing his Republican candidacy for president at Liberty State Park in New Jersey, June 21, 2011. |
Standing at Liberty State Park in New Jersey with the Statue of Liberty in the background, the precise location from which Reagan launched his general election campaign in 1980, Huntsman pledged to turn America around.
“For the first time in our history, we are passing down to the next generation a country that is less powerful, less compassionate, less competitive and less confident than the one we got,” Huntsman said. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is totally unacceptable and totally un-American.”
Huntsman also said he’d conduct his campaign “on the high road,” respecting both Republican rivals as well as President Obama.
“I respect the president,” Huntsman said. “The question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president; not who’s the better American.”
Limbaugh, often referred to as the leader of conservative thought in America, said, “You have to forgive me here, but I’m a little resentful of people who are nothing like Reagan trying to be Reagan.”
“Reagan was an unapologetic conservative and there was none of this talk about civility in all of this. And now the image that we’ve got here so far in Mr. Huntsman’s announcement [is] ‘We’re gonna be civil. We respect the president, we’re not gonna attack his reputation. We are going to be like Ronaldus Magnus (Reagan).”
Limbaugh then played sound clips from Reagan’s own announcement from the same park on Sept. 1, 1980, as Reagan flayed then–President Jimmy Carter for the nation’s troubles.
“The Carter record is a litany of despair of broken promises of sacred trusts abandoned and forgotten,” Reagan said at the time. “His answer to all this misery? He tries to tell us we’re only in a recession, not a depression, as if definitions, words relieve our suffering. Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well, if it’s a definition he wants, I’ll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his!”
Reagan continued, “Call this human tragedy whatever you want. Whatever it is, it’s Jimmy Carter’s. He caused it, he tolerates it and he’s going to answer to the American people for it.”
Limbaugh said he had nothing personal against Huntsman, but complained about his “moderate” campaign theme: “My comments here have to do with campaign technique, tactics and ‘strategery.'”
“Look at who it is that actually loses our elections and who it is that wins them,” Limbaugh said. “Ronaldus Magnus won twice, landslides. Not only did he say that he was a conservative, he did it with great enthusiasm and passion. He wasn’t embarrassed to say he was a conservative at all, nor was he embarrassed about conservatism. George W. Bush won twice espousing conservative principles, policies and ideals. The people on our side that lose elections are these vaunted moderates, the RINOs or the liberal Republicans: George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain.”
