I’ve been thinking that any real change in the US..or anywhere else… will only come from outside politics, from business, or from technology, or from a cultural trend (such as, off-grid living) or from a spiritual movement. But occasionally, I wonder if some politician could actually push things in a new direction, make some kind of real difference.

Recently, some people have been touting a GOP  dark horse who´s joined Team Obama. That’s former Utah governor and current Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman Junior, who even struck some writer at the Washington Post as a potential ‘next big thing.’

(Hmmm.. coming from the WashPo that might be a contrarian indicator, come to think of it..)

Still, while, I’m not much inclined to presidential handicapping, at first sight, Huntsman does seem to have some things to offer.

What would he bring to the table? Let’s see.

In descending order of importance:

1. Per wiki bio, bilingualism in Mandarin and knowledge of another Asian language. Training in international politics. Experience living and working (at the highest level) in China.

Considering the importance of the Chinese economy to the world and to America; its centrality to American diplomacy; its vital role in any kind of global confrontation or exchange, having someone with that kind of experience and background in the highest office would be a big, big positive.

2. Business background. Huntsman, the son of a chemicals billionaire and philanthropist, has held executive positions with the family-owned corporations that also have business dealings in China. That’s the kind of background that makes it easier to tackle economic and financial issues with street-cred. Add to that, stints in the commerce department (Deputy Trade Representative and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce), the governorship of Utah, and an ambassadorship to Singapore. (For now, let’s overlook the crony capitalist element of this).

After Palin’s and Obama’s queasy-making amateur hour CV’s, we can say ‘well-qualified’ with a sigh of relief.

3.  Bipartisan.  Bipartisan isn’t always my favorite word, because it usually means nothing more than opportunistic. But one of the things Huntsman has called the GOP on is a major problem – that’s the tendency of the party to slide into anti-intellectual and anti-scientific rhetoric and action.

Actually, I should modify what I said. Anti-intellectual and anti-scientific attitudes are equally a problem for the Democrats…only they’ve co-opted the language  so much you can’t tell. Somehow, the GOP ends up perceived as the party of yahoos, even when the prescriptions coming from the Dems are just as much hocus-pocus.

In mainstream discussion, as you can see from this Politico piece, “moderate” is a reflexive term for Republicans who go along with whatever Democrats want. For example, Huntsman’s change of heart on the hard-line immigration bill he signed naturally gets the “bi-partisan” wink and nod.

Is there any more to Huntsman’s “statesman” cred than that? Let’s see.

• He’s on record supporting civil unions for gays, a solid plus in his favor, from my standpoint. It’s no part of the government’s business to be prescribing or proscribing sexual conduct. That’s up to the  institutions of civil society – to individual families, churches, cultural and moral leaders, not some DC policy pasha.

• Second, he’s receptive to environmental conservation. Whether this means the usual state-centric approach or whether he might move toward more entrepreneurial solutions remains to be seen. I don’t blame him for falling for the cap-and-trade boondoggle, because everyone else has fallen for it, except for a few skeptics in the blogosphere and academia. Being willing to depart from the “God-gave-us-the-world-to-do-what-we-dam’-well-please-with-it” line (“rape,” is the word Ann Coulter actually used) is still a definite plus, cap-and-trade and all.

• Most interestingly, Huntsman has a hands-on style that can come up with something like introducing Chinese into Utah public schools:

“Utah became the first state to pass legislation to include it in public-school curricula. Surprisingly many Chinese officials return from visits to America saying their fondest memories are of Utah. Sharing meals with Mormon families and being serenaded by American schoolchildren in Chinese seems to make a big impression on travelers from the People’s Republic. “They said, ‘If a state governor can have kids singing in our own language, it’s even better than traditional diplomacy,’ ” says Shawn Hu, a former Utah state trade representative who helped arrange numerous Utah trips for Chinese delegations.”

This is one of those simple but real changes that sneaks through my libertarian radar. Young Americans babbling chattering in Mandarin this side of the Pacific. Young Chinese, hopefully, babbling chattering in English on that side. Smile. It’s not the government’s business, of course, but if we have to have busy-bodying, let it be on behalf of training in languages.

That aside, Huntsman also has other pluses or possible pluses:

• He’s young, clean (at least, so far), and photogenic, with a very good-looking wife and seven photogenic children, two of them adopted from China and India.  When your own family is a Kodak-perfect endorsement of big, bountiful families (he has 9 brothers and sisters and 60 nieces and nephews), it does give you some leeway to deviate from the party-line on family values.

• A big unknown quantity that could work to his advantage is his religion. Mormons are apparently hard to swallow for the conservative wing of the party, if we’re to go by the reception given to Mitt Romney. But Romney, a technocrat businessman with little experience of politics, isn’t really comparable to Huntsman, beyond the Mormonism.  Huntsman is a far more political figure. It’s more than possible that on a savvy person, a minority religion can have a certain off-beat cache that softens the image of yet another “filthy-rich white guy.” It could appeal, like Reagan’s Catholicism appealed.

So, is Huntsman the new face of the GOP….. or just another pol?

Unfortunately, after adding up pluses and minuses, it looks more like the latter.

Here’s one give-away. Huntsman accepted Obama’s stimulus money.

Bobby Jindal and Mark Sanford, whatever you think of them otherwise, both turned the Seducer-In-Chief down.  No room to quibble here. Small government means just that. You can’t accept money to expand government and hope to keep that label. If you’re not a fiscal conservative AND you’re not a social conservative, it’s clear you’re not any kind of conservative at all.

Huntsman’ role in the school-voucher initiative in Utah also smells of opportunism. The relevant point is that Huntsman got a lot of money for his run for the governorship of Utah by promising to push for school choice, and then when he got into office, sat on his hands. [Huntsman’s people, of course, say they did their bit].

Even on gay rights, Huntsman came out in favor of the civil union bill when there was little chance of it ever making it into legislation. In other words, it was window-dressing that made him look good  to a broader audience than 85% white, largely Republican Utah, where civil unions for gays is a dead issue.

So here’s my question. If Huntsman is really just another pol (albeit a very accomplished and attractive one), why he is being praised by the likes of Politico as the one GOP candidate that Obama fears?

In fact, this Washington Post article suggests that Obama effectively took Huntsman out of the running for 2012 by sending him off to China. Another WashPo piece says that Huntsman is positioning himself for 2016.

What do I think?

1. Huntsman isn’t a national figure, and even with a strong media tail-wind, wouldn’t be a player in 2012. He’s not a charismatic speaker, and his elite background and grooming wouldn’t play well at all to an increasingly populist base. So Politico and WashPo are blowing smoke here.

2.  Setting Huntsman up as the GOP’s “new face” obscures the truth that he’s just another pol willing to go along with the big government consensus. In other words, he’s the kind of Republicans liberals least fear.

3. Setting up Huntsman as the opposition marginalizes (or tries to marginalize) conservative figures who really bother Democrats (people like Bobby Jindal or Mark Sanford)…and tells libertarians sotto voce what sort of libertarianism is acceptable, social libertarianism, not financial.

In other words, no Ron or Rand Pauls, please.

Over at Townhall.com, Matt Lewis seems to have reached a similar conclusion about this dark horse…

4. Focusing on Huntsman as a potential presidential candidate also distracts from big questions about Huntsman’s business background, especially as it relates to China. The Huntsman Corporation is one of the biggest chemicals companies in the world and one of the biggest air polluters in America. Since pollution/the environment is a major issue in Sino-American relations, lecturing China on the subject with Huntsman in charge is going to be difficult…

And that’s the least of it..

(But that’s enough for this post. More on this intriguing figure in another post)