Meet Your Next. U.S. President

[SlowwHand]

Governor Perry has promised me Alberta to use in setting up a ranch. I'm going to have a herd of goats and one of cats.

[giblets]

Remember Jon Huntsman? Yeah, him. The guy who isn’t Rick Perry.

Like other presidential candidates, Huntsman has had to sit back and watch as Perry and his ten-gallon rhetoric have sucked up almost all of the oxygen this week on the Republican side of the race.

Apparently, on Thursday, Huntsman decided to do something about it, taking to Twitter at an unprecedented level of engagement. Huntsman tweeted four times, including one missive that was a direct slap at Perry and one that, well, mentioned Captain Beefheart. (No, Perry and Captain Beefheart are not the same person, but that's an easy mistake to make.)

Addressing Perry’s stated skepticism of theories of evolution and climate change, Huntsman tweeted, “To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”

Almost immediately after that, he trained his fire on the president, saying “With the jobs crisis this country faces, President Obama should be calling Congress back to DC, not going on a 10-day vacation.”

Obviously feeling liberated, Huntsman then started to riff: “Wonder if a tweet where I admit how much I like Captain Beefheart will make the followers skyrocket even more!” he questioned. (Huntsman used to play keyboards in a rock band, not that that explains his fondness for the esoteric Beefheart.)

On Friday, as if to prove that he is now a full-fledged Twitterholic, Huntsman engaged in a back-and-forth with actor Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight on NBC’s “The Office.” Wilson is one of the best-known celebrity denizens on Twitter.

“I'm proud to be Republican, party of Lincoln, Teddy, Reagan,” Huntsman said. “My q for you. Any relation to Brian Wilson?” (presumably he means the Beach Boys’ Wilson, not the San Francisco Giant.)

(And he just sent a note to CNN's Piers Morgan, dropping a Christine O'Donnell reference for good measure. We can't keep up!)

It’s too early to tell if the activity has marked a shift in Huntsman’s campaign strategy toward a more direct and interactive approach. (Time for a “Takin’ it to the Streets” reference? He’ll get it.) But he unquestionably needs something to jumpstart his campaign.

As of now, he still remains something of an odd duck, as if he occupies space in two parallel universes like the character in that Gwyneth Paltrow film, "Sliding Doors." Huntsman is viewed as a viable, likable candidate in the New York-Washington power axis, but outside of that he’s virtually unknown, polling far closer to Fred Karger/Gary Johnson Zombieland territory than Mitt Romney or Perry.

Evidence of that comes this week in the form of a glowing spread in, of all places, Vogue magazine, in which Huntsman receives the Annie Leibovitz treatment.

Speaking of Huntsman and his wife, Mary Kaye, the article’s author, Jacob Weisberg, writes:

“She is wearing a short-sleeved Carolina Herrera dress that picks up the piercing blue of her eyes. With his tanned face and salt-and-pepper hair, he looks so good in checked shirts and denim jackets that the Wall Street Journal recently compared the launch of his campaign to a Ralph Lauren product rollout.”

Sounds wonderful. Except the problem with this particular product is that no one yet seems to be actually, you know, buying it. But there’s still plenty of time for that to change, of course—and perhaps that change will come incrementally, say in 140 characters or less.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-huntsman-twitter-20110819,0,7717274.story

Yeah... if this guy wants the nomination he needs to start talking like a ****ing loon.

[Docfeelgood]

[Ben Kenobi]

You most certainly did not use the same measure for both. You used government figures for Canada's debt and Moody's for Texas'. They do not measure the same thing.

CA = Cahleefownya

CDN = Canada.

You have this whole conversation going in your head that simply does not exist in reality.

An understandable mistrake cause by your misinterpretation of CA as Canada.

[Asher]

CA = Cahleefownya

CDN = Canada.



An understandable mistrake cause by your misinterpretation of CA as Canada.

Not my misinterpretation.

In that post you discussed the PPP of Canada vs the USA in the first sentence, then in the second referenced debt per capita of "CA". Reasonable assumption.

[giblets]

I've seen CA used as an abbreviation for Canada before.

[HalfLotus]

Looks like Texans will be voting for the Good Doctor:

Ron Paul clobbers Rick Perry in latest poll

[Ben Kenobi]

I've seen CA used as an abbreviation for Canada before.

It's used almost exclusively as CA in Canada. Everything is CA.

But in the US, CA is California, CDN is Canadian. Or CAN/CAL, which is the standard up north to distinguish between the two.

[Asher]

CAL is clearly Calgary.

[Ben Kenobi]

CAL is clearly Calgary.

CGY is Calgary.
EDM is Edmonton

[Asher]

Calgary is CGY, CAL, YYC.
Edmonton is EDM, YEG, EWW.

[a.kitman]

hello

[dannubis]

Guys, why are you still discussing with a known liar and bigoted wannabe christian? Ignore him, (don't quote him) and we can all go back to having "sane" discussions...

[Solomwi]

Who passed out the ****** sandwiches in this thread? Anyway, I hope Perry gets the nomination if only because Asher's thread if/when Roger Williams becomes a newsworthy name will be glorious.

[Dinner]

The really hilarious thing is that Steven Colbert of Comedy Central ran a series of parody ads in Iowa urging people to vote for "Parry" the fictitious candidate for "People for a better America tomorrow, tomorrow". It turns out all of the "Parry" votes were given to "Perry" so Rick Perry's relatively good showing at the straw poll was likely due to Steven Colbert making fun of him and not because the voters actually liked him or supported him.