Former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman will not be among those attending the Republican National Convention next month.
The former Utah governor scolded the Republican Party for ignoring what he considers the country’s big issues and said he will not attend the Republican National Convention or future GOP gatherings until the party abandons what he calls sound-bite politics.
Huntsman told The Salt Lake Tribune in a statement that he “will not be attending this year’s convention, nor any Republic convention in the future until the party focuses on a bigger, bolder, more confident future for the United States — a future based on problem solving, inclusiveness, and a willingness to address the trust deficit, which is every bit as corrosive as our fiscal and economic deficits.”
Adopting the “Country First” theme of his failed Republican presidential campaign, Huntsman encouraged “a return to the party we have been in the past, from Lincoln right on through to Reagan, that was always willing to put our country before politics.”
Huntsman means for his stunt to be an affront to the GOP, but for a candidate whose campaign failed to gain traction among voters and whose party loyalty was always questionable, his intended insult will likely fall on deaf ears.
