So given the fact that Huntsman has no strong base in the one state where he has the strongest political ties, why does he think he can convince the rest of the country’s Republicans to choose him as their standard bearer? Contrary to Mark, I think Huntsman’s resume is pretty substantial, and being a fluent Chinese-speaking US ambassador to first Singapore and then to China, and a China specialist on the US trade negotiation team, is a meaningful credential in a time when China is playing an increasingly crucial role in the US economy. But Huntsman’s political position is one that the Tea Party movement, which boosted the GOP to a takeover of the House of Representatives, is not going to embrace, so Huntsman is trying to count on the old pre-Tea Party Republican establishment–namely, the people who lost the presidency and House and Senate to the Democrats in 2008–to put him over the top. Huntsman would be McCain redux.

As for Huntsman’s Mormon affiliation–voters in Utah are actually pretty tolerant in their elected officials of a lack of fully enthusiastic engagement in Mormon religious beliefs and practices. They three times elected Cal Rampton, a hard-drinking unobservant Mormon, to the governorship, and also have elected a Jew and a Presbyterian to that office. But Mormons can tell from the way Huntsman talks about his Mormon affiliation in interviews that he is not fully engaged in those beliefs. I don’t think Mormons are going to feel any impulse to go out of their way to support Huntsman financially or as volunteers, unless they agree with his political positions. So Huntsman will have the disadvantages of an association with Mormonism in the minds of anti-Mormon Evangelicals, and no benefit of support from fellow Mormons viewing him as a sort of standard-bearer who might dispel misconceptions about Mormons simply by being an excellent national leader.