Election 2012: June 2011 Archives

The Wells Fargo Building in the fog Saturday night.

Herman Cain speaking to the conference.

At a blogger press conference, Evan McMorris-Santoro asks Herman Cain a question he'd already answered. See Stacy McCain and Nice Deb's accounts of the confrontation, in which Herman Cain spoke a few words in a slightly louder voice. (This is the confrontation that The Gateway Pundit falsely characterized as Cain "screaming.")

After the news conference, Herman Cain greets Arkansas blogger Bill Smith. In the background, Stacy McCain, John Sexton of Verum Serum, Steve Eggleston of No Runny Eggs, and Nice Deb.

After the press conference, Herman Cain with Nice Deb, with John Sexton and Steve Eggleston. Stacy McCain's hat and camera can be seen in the foreground left.

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

Michelle Malkin.

RedState's Erick Erickson.

Stacy McCain.

Tabitha Hale at Brit's Pub.

PUBLISHED 2024/10/01: I'm not sure why I left this in draft, but I came across this while writing about my distrust of The Gateway Pundit, whose editor, Jim Hoft, was not present, but nevertheless falsely characterized Herman Cain at the blogger press conference as "screaming." (Note that the commenters at the time didn't buy Hoft's characterization. NiceDeb's video linked above, and commentary from her and Stacy McCain report the event as I remember it.) I haven't trusted Gateway Pundit ever since, and I have been even more put off by Hoft's ingratitude toward Dana Loesch, who with her husband Chris helped to nurse him back to health after a major health scare; Hoft trashed her over their differences of opinion in the 2016 Republican primary race.

Former Utah Gov. and Obama Administration Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman has hired two campaign consultants with ties to Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe to handle the candidate's video and digital presence.

Ryan Cassin is Huntsman's digital strategist, according to a CNN story about the Huntsman campaign website. Cassin served as political director of Inhofe's 2008 reelection campaign, GOTV/grassroots coordinator for the Oklahoma Republican State House Committee in 2006, and deputy campaign manager for Mick Cornett's unsuccessful 2006 run for Oklahoma's 5th Congressional District. Earlier this year Cassin and former Inhofe campaign manager Josh Kivett founded Connect Strategic Communications.

Fred Davis, Inhofe's nephew, is Huntsman's media strategist, creating web video ads which have received notice in political circles for being rather odd:

Needless to say, the ads are a bit of a head-scratcher if you don't already know about Huntsman. It's all very puzzling.

"Exactly right. On purpose. Correct me if I'm wrong, Jeff, but is the election today? I can't remember," said Fred Davis, the man responsible for the video series. " ... The goal today is to say, 'huh, you know I'm not really excited about anybody on the Republican side running for president. Look, here's somebody's whose fresh and different. That's all you can ask for today."

Davis is a very affable man on quite a hot streak. He was behind the viral Carla Fiorina "Demon Sheep" ad in the 2010 midterms and is accustomed to making a splash with his off-beat videos. It's perfect and "will eventually make sense," he said of Huntsman's unconventional campaign, which he's joining in an official capacity.

You'll recall that Davis was also behind Christine O'Donnell's "I'm Not a Witch" ad from 2010 and Bob Sullivan's campaign ads attacking Ernest Istook during the 2006 Oklahoma Republican governor's primary. (Those ads involved Gailard Sartain, a pig mask, and an Istook mask.)

(I started looking into this because I was surprised to see exuberantly positive mentions of Huntsman on my Facebook home page from Cassin. I didn't expect to see any of my Facebook friends -- mostly Tulsans, Oklahomans, and national bloggers -- excited about a Huntsman candidacy.)

MORE on Jon Huntsman:

Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks dismisses Huntsman:

"To be honest with you...we haven't really taken a look at him [Huntsman] because I don't consider him a serious candidate," said Kibbe. "If he starts to emerge as somebody- I mean, I've been told by people that he's not terribly good on our issues."...

"He [Huntsman] had some pretty glorifying things to say about the stimulus," Kibbe continued. "And apparently...there's a lot of rumors that's he's signed some really glowing letter about Obama as soon as he was an ambassador," he added jokingly.

Michelle Malkin: "Jon Huntsman: McCain on Wheels"

Huntsman is the latest no-labels flavor of the month, a straw man of the same people who have spent the past year smearing entitlement reformers as senior-citizen killers, budget hawks as Hitler's spawn, border-security activists as racists, and leading GOP women as sluts, nuts, and bimbos.

While politely paying lip service to principles of tea-party fiscal restraint, Huntsman hopes no one remembers how 2,000 Utah tea-party activists booed him in April 2009 so corrosively it could have stripped the paint off a fleet of Harleys.

Utah conservatives raised their voices at the seminal tea-party rally against Huntsman for championing $1.6 billion in Obama stimulus funds (Huntsman wanted even more money than that) -- and against GOP senator Orrin Hatch and then-GOP senator Bob Bennett for backing the Bush-Obama TARP bailout. The grassroots message: "Send them home!" A year later, voters ousted Bennett from the GOP primary after four profligate terms in office. And Hatch is in for the fight of his entrenched incumbent life.

Malkin points out several similarities between McCain and Huntsman with regard to global warming, illegal immigration, and government control of health care.

In an interview with Politico, Huntsman says he plans to win the nomination by appealing to non-Republicans who will be able, in many states, to cross over and vote in the Republican primary.

Given that an incumbent president is a prohibitive favorite to win renomination, many Democrat voters will take the lack of a competitive primary for their own party to influence the outcome of the Republican nomination process.

The former Utah governor's strategy is an attempt to make a virtue out of necessity. His moderate positions on the environment, immigration and civil unions --and his time as Barack Obama's ambassador to China--are formidable obstacles to victory in a party where the energy is concentrated in the conservative core.

Huntsman plans to skip the Iowa caucuses. Huntsman's wealth and past political favors may win him political allies that might otherwise reject him on policy grounds:

A litany of establishment South Carolina Republicans who have already signed up to support him were at his side: former state party executive director Joel Sawyer, who is running his effort in the state; Mike Campbell, son of the late Gov. Carroll Campbell, a revered Republican figure here; and former state Attorney General Henry McMaster.

McMaster is returning the support he got from Huntsman several years ago, when the ex-governor held a fundraiser out out west that netted $60,000 for McMaster's 2010 gubernatorial campaign. The fundraiser was held before Huntsman departed to become ambassador to China.

Video of the main session speeches and the policy track panels for RightOnline 2011 have now been posted.

Available videos include:

• Opening general session: Congressman Marsha Blackburn (TN), Congressman John Kline (MN), Ann McElhinney of Not Evil Just Wrong, Melissa Clouthier @MelissaTweets, John Hinderaker of PowerLineBlog.com
• Grassroots Awards Dinner: Andrew Breitbart of BigGovernment.com, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity Foundation, Tracy Henke of Americans for Prosperity Foundation, and Erik Telford of Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
• Saturday general session: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (MN), Congressman Tim Huelskamp (KS), Michelle Malkin, Commentator Jason Lewis, John Fund of The Wall Street Journal, Author and Conservative Commentator S.E. Cupp, Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com, Erick Erickson of RedState.com, Guy Benson of Townhall.com
• Special session with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (Part 1, Part 2)
• Closing Session With Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli, Michigan Congressman Thad McCotter, artist Steve Penley, and Herman Cain.

Many of the speeches are available as individual videos on RightOnline's YouTube channel.

The public policy panel discussions available for viewing:

• Cutting Red Tape: Reining in Out-of-Control Regulators
• Healthcare: Obamacare vs. Patient Freedom
• Job Creation: Standing Up To Obama's Union Thugs
• Tax Reform: A Return to Economic Growth
• Internet Freedom: Washington's Internet Takeover
• Extreme Power Abuse: Global Warming & Energy Regulation

UPDATED 2024/10/01 to replace a dead link to the RightOnline website with an Internet Archive link and to add direct links to AFPHQ's Vimeo account and the RightOnline YouTube channel. This must have been before YouTube allowed videos longer than 10 minutes.