Democratic Party sources who see President Obama championing cuts in social safety safety net programs instituted by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, are quietly talking about supporting the GOP presidential candidacy of former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Obama’s ambassador to China. With no Democrat willing to launch a primary challenge to Obama, some Democratic strategists are hoping that with a crowded GOP field of far-right candidates like Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and others, Huntsman could garner enough moderate Republicans, independents, and primary cross-over disaffected Democrats to win key primary states.
The Democratic strategists believe that a Huntsman presidency would give the Democratic Party four years to purge Obama’s ex-Democratic Leadership Council loyalists from the party in time to prepare for the 2016 election.
Bill Clinton recently gave a public endorsement of Huntsman and another former Republican Governor, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, citing their moderate stances. Clinton said, “Y’know, I like the governors: I like Huntsman and Romney.” However, WMR has been told that Clinton is not part of the core internal Democratic Party grouping that seeks to back Huntsman at Obama’s expense.
Democratic rebels see Huntsman as more progressive than Obama on environmental issues and U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
A Democratic Party source told WMR, “Obama is destroying the Democratic Party and Huntsman may be the only way we can run the Obama people out of the party and rebuild from what has been the greatest disaster since Jimmy Carter’s debacle as president.” The source added, “while Carter was well-intentioned but surrounded by incompetents, Obama is out to gut the Democratic Party of its core principles.”
Insurgent Democrats point to Obama’s sacking of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, the conceiver of the “50-state strategy that saw the Democrats win a 60-seat majority in the Senate and an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives, as Democratic National Chairman. In 2010, the Democrats under Obama’s tutelage, lost their House majority and saw their Senate majority whittled down to a thin majority.
A Huntsman administration, in the eyes of the rebel Democrats, would likely be marked by a number of moderate Republicans, independents, and Democrats who might be in a better position to safeguard Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, pension guarantees, and other social safety net programs, in addition to cutting the bloated defense budget. The insurgent Democrats would then use Obama’s loss to “clean house” and ensure that the 2016 Democratic candidate was in step with traditional Democratic Party values.
Likely aware that some unions have signed on to the strategy of supporting Huntsman, Vice President Joe Biden, who keeps his hand on the pulse of internal Democratic Party thinking, recently told the Teamsters convention in Las Vegas that if they vote Republican, “Don’t come to me if you do! You’re on your own, Jack.” The Teamsters have a history of supporting Republicans, having endorsed Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2011 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
