Around election time, conservatives are always confronted with the arduous task of sifting through candidates who propagate meretricious right wing talking points in an effort to conceal their faux conservative record.  Thankfully, this election cycle, to a certain extent, has given rise to an anomalous level of veracity.  Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are unambiguously communicating to conservatives that they are not ‘one of the guys’.  There is simply no mystery how they would govern or negotiate with Democrats if elected President in 2012.  Thanks for the candor, guys.

Former Utah Governor and Obama-embracing, yet, backstabbing Ambassador Jon Huntsman is taking this approach to a new level-a level of candor that can only mean that he is seeking the VP nomination for a Mike Bloomberg ticket.

Time magazine is running a profile on Huntsman for next week’s edition of the paper.  They offer some bold quotes from the former Obama administration official that show he is not backing down from his progressivism at all.  Let his words stand on their own demerits:

On business, free markets, and responsibility for the financial collapse:

The free market system is fragile; there is risk built in. Massive debt-equity ratios and the financial instruments made available by Wall Street got many businesses big and small into trouble, but we learn; Wall Street is learning from their own mistakes about what leverage can do. Everybody is learning how leverage can hurt you, and lots of forces are at work, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, trying to lead us back to financial health. Ultimately I hope we’ll balance the budget and deal with entitlements and the defense budget. And the states need to play stepped-up roles in health and education. (emphasis added)

On Libya and Afghanistan:

There will be more to say about that. I wanted to pursue public service more than anything on the public policy side; until only a year before we ran, it really hadn’t occurred to me that [running for office] was a sane thing to do. You make fun of people who run, but if you’re not willing to run, what kind of patriot are you?

So the only guy running with the professed foreign policy credentials has nothing to say about foreign policy?

On civil unions:

I’ve always been in favor of traditional marriage and thinking that you open Pandora’s Box when you start to redefine it. But we’ve had friends who are gay and we’ve heard horror stories [about hospital visitation and legal rights], and I thought it was an appropriate time.

On global warming:

This is an issue that ought to be answered by the scientific community; I’m not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we’d listen to them. I respect science and the professionals behind the science so I tend to think it’s better left to the science community – though we can debate what that means for the energy and transportation sectors.

On his “position change” over cap and trade:

Cap-and-trade ideas aren’t working; it hasn’t worked, and our economy’s in a different place than five years ago. Much of this discussion happened before the bottom fell out of the economy, and until it comes back, this isn’t the moment. (emphasis added)

On his Mormonism and faith:

I think it’s a non-issue; it’s a religion that’s surprisingly heterogeneous. And let me say, I’m a very spiritual person; I can’t walk into a church or synagogue without getting a little emotional…

On positive aspects of past Presidents:

Each [President] had a goodness and a devotion. In the case of Bush Sr., his ability to build on the end of the Cold War; Reagan gets most of the credit, but lost in that, Bush was quite capable, putting together a post-Cold War world and in the first Gulf war he put together an unprecedented coalition. George W., he had to deal with 9/11, and what no one had heard of before, this war on terror. And President Obama is trying to pick up the pieces of our economy and make sense of a world grown more complex and confusing.