Asked whether he was still a Mormon at all, Huntsman said 'that’s tough to define.' Salt Lake wounds: Huntsman's moves trouble Utah

Orlando, Florida is nearly 2,000 miles away from Salt Lake City as the crow flies, about as far as you can get from Jon Huntsman’s old office in the Utah statehouse without dropping off the continental United States entirely.

Huntsman’s recent decision to headquarter his campaign in Florida makes sense for logistical and political reasons but the location—and some recent remarks about his faith — have combined to produce a sharp reaction from the Mormon Establishment, solidifying the impression for many of the former governor’s constituents that he plans to keep his distance in more ways than one.


“He’s trying to create a brand name that doesn’t keep ‘ Utah’ and ‘Mormon’ at the forefront of people’s minds,” said Quin Monson, a political science professor at Brigham Young University. “‘Mormon’ didn’t do a lot for Mitt Romney. I think Huntsman is deliberately trying to brand himself in a different way.”

The Mormon reaction against Huntsman began with a question.

“Is Huntsman distancing himself from LDS faith?” the Salt Lake Tribune asked on May 9, noting that he’d attended a nondenominational megachurch in Charleston, S.C. that weekend.

But it really exploded after a Time Magazine interview where Huntsman appeared to go wobbly at a key moment. Asked point blank whether he was still a Mormon at all, Huntsman sounded as if he was dodging. “That’s tough to define,” he said.

His spokesman, Tim Miller, actually quickly cleaned up the hazy response, which may have been more an attempt to avoid the question than to disavow his faith. Huntsman “remains a member of the church and proud to be part of the fabric of a large, vibrant faith,” he told the Deseret News.

But the paper, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and part of a media group that serves a heavily LDS readership, proceeded to quote a pair of experts taking the candidate sharply to task for an “apparent attempt to distance himself from his faith.”

Robert George, a Princeton scholar of religion and member of the paper’s editorial advisory board, was given the lead spot, saying: “It looks to me like he’s pandering to bigotry or he’s failing in either candor or integrity,” and comparing Huntsman unfavorably to Romney — who has the support both of the state’s Establishment and, in polls, most of its GOP primary voters. “He’s not giving a complete and honest answer to the question just because he’s avoiding it — or something worse,” he told the paper.

The News’s sister television station, KSL, piled on with an online survey on Huntsman’s remarks (three-quarters of respondents didn’t like them) and noted the intensity of interest in the story, reporting that it generated 20 times as much web traffic as would be typical.

By Monday, News columnist Jane Kendrick had labeled the interview (in a more forgiving column) “now-famous-for-the-Mormons.”

“The LDS community felt a little bit disappointed because it speaks to the larger issue that masses of voters don’t see the viability of an LDS candidate,” said Peter Watkins, a former George W. Bush aide who now teaches at the University of Utah. “At some level it disappointed that community here that our faith is still a liability, and how Governor Huntsman publicly addressed this fueled that fire a little bit.”

Huntsman was asked again about his faith on Good Morning America Friday, in a question from a concerned Utah viewer. "I am Mormon," he said.

Huntsman suffered by comparison in Utah to Romney, whose 2008 campaign was confronted by polls that showed a significant number of voters would not vote for a Mormon for president. Romney took a different route — addressing the issue in a major speech where he said he did not define his candidacy by his religion but nevertheless made his position clear.

“I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it,” he said at the George Bush Presidential Library. “My faith is the faith of my fathers — I will be true to them and to my beliefs.”

Watkins and other local politicos said they understood, if they didn’t thrill to, the reasons for Huntsman to move on from Utah. Florida is a pivotal primary state in which Huntsman’s wife has family ties, and Orlando is a city with enviable flight connections to South Carolina, which he’s signaled he’ll contest intensely. It’s also somewhat closer to New Hampshire than Salt Lake City.

Back in the state he left, though, it’s hard not to attach a measure of symbolism to the move.

“‘Transcend’ is a good word. I’m not sure he’s trying to put Utah behind him — but he’s clearly trying to move to the bigger stage,” said LaVarr Webb, a Utah Republican political consultant. “That doesn’t require paying a great deal of attention to Utah.”

And Huntsman has already left. He’s been in Beijing for two years — his stint as an Ambassador to the far east — and just bought a house in Washington, D.C. But his family roots there are still deep. His father is a leading industrialist in Utah. His son Will, a football star at Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City, is graduating this year and heading for the Naval Academy; Huntsman, the Tribune reported, will return for the ceremony over Memorial Day week.

“Romney is the favorite son and it’s very clear that he’s in the better position. By some chance that Huntsman gets the nomination, he’ll still win Utah,” said Monson. “There’s really no downside and a lot of upside” to Florida.

“It’s not a surprise, it’s not unexpected,” said Doug Foxley, a consultant who worked with Huntsman on his 2004 gubernatorial campaign. “We have a presidential primary — but it’s so late in the game, we’re irrelevant.”

CORRECTION: There is a daily direct flight from Orlando to Manchester, N.H. on Southwest Airlines.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Bryan Doyle @ 05/20/2011 11:06 AM CORRECTION: There is a daily direct flight from Orlando to Manchester, N.H. on Southwest Airlines.