Why Jon Huntsman is leaving the GOP (not because they’re Communists)
(YahooNews) 1 hr ago – A member of the audience posed this question to him: “Given the present direction and positions the party has taken … is there room for people like you?” Well, he answered, “I’m sitting here as a Republican.”
But after he talked with great enthusiasm about the rise of the unaffiliated voter and the challenge to the political duopoly, I [Jeff Greenfield] posed one more question.
“Why do I get the feeling,” I asked him, “that if we have this conversation a couple of years from now, you will not be sitting here as a Republican?”
“Because,” he said with a smile, “you’re a good journalist.”
Flattery aside, the answer couldn’t have been clearer.
HOW HUNTSMAN GOT IN TROUBLE WITH GOP
Before dawn, websites were reporting the quote under headlines like “Huntsman compares GOP to Communist Party of China.” This is what he said:
“My first thought was, this is what they do in China on party matters if you talk off script.”
Those words were spoken Sunday night by Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor and Republican presidential candidate, in a public interview with me [Jeff Greenfield] at New York’s 92nd Street Y. Huntsman was describing how his comments about the potential appeal of a third party got him disinvited to speak at a Republican National Committee event in Florida.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
