Grading the Huntsman Rollout

If former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s 2012 launch proves anything, says Republican Dan Schnur, it’s that he’s “the ultimate high risk, high reward candidate.”
Every choice the Huntsman camp made for Tuesday’s rollout — from the logistics to the venue to the content of the kick-off speech — was in some ways a gamble, said the former communications director for Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2000 presidential bid.
The atmospherics surrounding the relatively “low key event,” which attracted just over 100 onlookers, were all about “establishing him as a different type of candidate with a different type of message,” said Schnur.
“I think they actually did it fairly well, but it’s also a lot easier to talk about staying positive and being noble when you’re at 3 percent in the polls,” he said.
     
Despite an expansive venue — New Jersey’s Liberty State Park, which sits in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty — Huntsman’s announcement didn’t attract throngs of supporters. All three cable news networks cut away from the announcement relatively quickly, likely prompted by Huntsman’s low-key delivery of a speech that steered clear of attacking President Obama.
Politico’s Ben Smith labeled it “one of the least emotional political events I’ve ever attended.”    
It was ultimately a backdrop that may have been too challenging for a Huntsman launch, said former Reagan speechwriter Clark Judge. In choosing a setting that evoked one of the most iconic photos of the late President Reagan, Huntsman’s camp set expectations sky high.   
   
“The great thing about the Reagan appearance there was that the photo was fresh,” said Judge. “No one had really done that big of an event there before and it fit perfectly with the themes of Reagan’s campaign.”
For Huntsman, he said, “We don’t know enough about him yet to say, ‘Yes, that backdrop fits. That’s the stage for him.’ It worked for Reagan, but Huntsman is still building themes.”  
Atmospherics aside, media in attendance were quick to point out some other logistical hiccups in Tuesday’s formal Huntsman rollout. The press badges for the announcement speech misspelled the candidate’s first name (it’s Jon without an H). The Huntsman sign attached to the candidate’s podium failed to list his website. And some of the supporters that were in attendance complained that Huntsman opted for an immediate interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity rather than shaking hands and greeting the crowd.
Strategically, said Schnur, the tone of the rollout is proof positive that the Huntsman camp is set to rerun the McCain 2000 playbook, with the Arizona Republican’s former top strategist John Weaver at the helm.    
“It’s clear that this feels a lot like McCain 2000, not only in tone, but in strategy,” he said. “Weaver may have figured that a strategy like that can work better without a true prohibitive frontrunner in the race. The question is whether there are enough non-Tea Party Republicans who are uncomfortable with the party’s rougher edges for it to work. It’s a big risk.”