Jon Huntsman’s first step toward oblivion

By Dana Milbank,
WashPost
Published: June 21

Who is Jon Huntsman and where is he going? Even his campaign aides don’t seem to know.

At the former Utah governor’s presidential kickoff speech on Tuesday, campaign workers distributed — and then confiscated — press credentials misspelling the candidate’s first name as “John” instead of “Jon.”

Those same credentials misstated the location of the event as New York rather than New Jersey — a symptom of a geographic confusion that became more pronounced later when reporters and campaign staff were directed toward a charter plane bound for Saudi Arabia rather than the intended destination of New Hampshire.

People watching the Huntsman announcement on TV were unlikely to emerge with any clearer picture of the candidate. Huntsman began talking at 10:06 a.m. Fox News cut in after just four minutes, as the candidate was praising the “selfless armed forces.” MSNBC broke in seconds later, as Huntsman spoke about the “character that made the desert bloom.” CNN made it all the way to 10:12 a.m., ending its live coverage when the candidate referred to “the end of the American century.”

(More here.)