What's The Difference Between Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman?

One answer is, "Who knows? Romney changes what he stands for every time he gets hit by a breeze." A more fair answer, though, is that Huntsman declared what he stands for, and Romney played the part of a contortionist chameleon. Tell him what the polls say can help him win an election and he'll twist himself into that shape.

The worst part - and yes, there's something worse than having no core values - he's an incredibly expert liar. He can say anything without any apparent concern for the fact that he has taken the opposite position, seemingly with his most heartfelt sincerity, years, weeks, days, hours before.

It is difficult to say what would have happened had Huntsman won the nomination - I doubt he would have bent to the polls, and thus would be running to the right of Romney, but he would have some amount of credibility with those who actually pay attention to the positions candidates take over time (even if they don't notice that Romney's shifts in position are almost invariably poll-driven).

I suspect that if you ran an honest, competent person, successful in business (even if born on third base), with a center-right, fiscally conservative approach to government, he would be pulling 55-60% of the vote. That stands as an indictment both of Mitt Romney and of his party.