Obama and his allies have recently applauded both Mitt Romney (left) and Jon Huntsman. Killing them softly

President Barack Obama has come to praise his Republican challengers - and to bury them.

Over the last few weeks, Obama and his top allies couldn’t seem to stop applauding several of the GOP’s potential 2012 contenders.


To listen to them tell it, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a health care visionary and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is a loyal foot soldier of the administration.

The political calculus behind that praise is straightforward: by wrapping their arms around some of the GOP’s most credible and deep-pocketed potential challengers, Democrats undermine the party’s attempt to win over its conservative base in the primary.

Obama aides deny that they’re wading into the Republican contest, but they’ve sought to intervene in GOP politics in the past, if on a smaller scale. Part of the benefit of sending Huntsman to Beijing was the hope that it would remove a moderate and wealthy Republican from the 2012 field, just as appointing Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y) as Secretary of the Army and attempting to place Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) in the administration would have freed up GOP-held seats.

Republicans are starting to call out the White House for their tactics.

“You may have noticed,” Romney told a gathering of Republicans in New Hampshire last weekend, “that the president and his people spend more time talking about me and Massachusetts health care than Entertainment Tonight spends talking about Charlie Sheen.”

That’s hyperbole, but only barely.

In a meeting with governors at the White House last month, Obama was effusive in lauding Romney’s health care achievement, which remains a major source of distrust toward Romney among conservatives.

“I agree with Mitt Romney,” Obama declared, “who r ecently said he’s proud of what he accomplished on health care in Massachusetts.”

Romney’s received even more enthusiastic praise from Democrats back in the Bay State. Gov. Deval Patrick, a close White House ally, touted Romney as “co-author of our health care reform, which has been a model for national health care reform,” on ABC’s “This Week.”

For Huntsman – who remains a member of the administration until his resignation takes effect April 30 – the applause has been at least as lavish.

In late January, Obama gave Huntsman a very public rhetorical hug during the Chinese president’s state visit, announcing in front of a crowd of reporters: “I couldn’t be happier with the ambassador’s service … I’m sure that him having worked so well with me will be a great asset in any Republican primary.”

White House chief of staff Bill Daley tightened the embrace in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, praising Huntsman’s “support of the Obama administration, his support of the president.”

“The things he did on behalf of this administration and the closeness in which he worked with the president, is much appreciated,” Daley said. “And I’m sure he’ll talk about that in the primaries.”

Actually, the White House aims to keep talking about it well before the first votes are cast.

Obama adviser David Axelrod told POLITICO that Huntsman has “been a fine representative and we’re grateful for his service” – the sort of job review that won’t help Huntsman detach himself from the White House in a GOP primary.

And on the topic of Romney’s main albatross, the health care law, Axelrod enthused: “So much from the Massachusetts experiment informed the decision-making around [federal health care reform]”

“I do admire him for trying to tackle that problem in Massachusetts,” Axelrod said. “He ought to take credit for it. Someday, maybe he will.”

Romney is still weighing how exactly he’ll confront what was one of his signature achievements on Beacon Hill and, specifically, how to grapple with the feature that makes it so similar to what the right derides as Obamacare: the mandate.

His spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said recently that the former governor was “proud” of the law, but Romney himself didn’t go that far last weekend in New Hampshire, calling it an “experiment” and acknowledging there were some elements of it he’d change.

Whatever he decides on, the White House is plainly relishing what one Obama adviser deemed a “delicious irony” – that one of the right’s biggest objections to Romney is also one of their biggest objections to Obama.

With Huntsman, there is a sharper edge, and a more clear sense of anger, toward the former Utah governor for flirting with a presidential run before even leaving Beijing.

“Even when he came back here for the state dinner, he said, ‘I don’t know where all this is coming from, this is way overblown,’ ” recalled Axelrod.

And, said a top Obama adviser, when the president visited China in 2009 Huntsman “could not have been more supportive.”

“He indicated that he appreciated what the president was trying to do on health care,” said the official.

That’s the kind of talk that for candidates like Romney and Huntsman, already viewed warily by some elements of the GOP base, could do real damage.

After all, it was barely two years ago that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist saw his senatorial aspirations disintegrate after literally hugging Obama at a rally for the stimulus in Fort Myers, Fla.

Before long, images of Crist hugging Obama were plastered across the top of the Drudge Report. The image showed up ads for now-Sen. Marco Rubio’s Senate primary campaign.

And while Democrats caution there isn’t necessarily some master plan to take out Romney and Huntsman, it’s easy to imagine either of them coming under the same sort of attacks as Crist.

John Weaver, who will likely oversee Huntsman’s campaign should the ambassador run, said the comments from Obama and his top backers represented an unambiguous attempt to insert themselves into the GOP primary – and strike preemptively against the most formidable candidates.

“You’d have to be naïve to believe that they aren’t trying to influence the primary,” Weaver said. “They want to run against the weakest Republican possible in the general election.”

If the White House “can insert themselves in a central way to get [GOP primary voters] concerned about the candidates, then they’ve succeeded politically,” he said. “But I think our voters will pick up on that.”

One line of thinking in the Romney camp holds that the underhanded praise from the White House has an upside: It elevates Romney above the rest of the field, marking him as a candidate worthy of the president’s direct attention. There’s a reason, this message goes, that Obama’s not attacking Tim Pawlenty or Haley Barbour.

Democrats scoffed at the notion that they were actually trying to pick their opposition.

“We’re not playing in their primary,” said one Obama associate, adding with evident delight: “If there are issues surrounding Gov. Romney’s universal health plan or Gov. Huntsman’s service in the Obama administration, we don’t need to raise them. Those are just facts.”

Another Democrat pointed out that it’s not White House gibes that Romney and Huntsman will have to worry about most. It’s Obama-themed attacks from their likely primary opponents.

“This is fairly easy. At some point, it’s just going to get picked up by their rivals,” said one Democratic official.

Quipped the official: “What could be better for Mike Huckabee or Haley Barbour or Newt Gingrich than to say, ‘I don’t know about this, but I don’t think somebody should be our nominee who’s received so much praise from the guy we’re trying to run against’?”

While Huntsman and Romney have received the most passionate embrace, they aren’t the only potential presidential candidates Obama is keeping close. He appeared last week in South Florida with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and showered the Republican with praise for his commitment to education reform.

Presidential campaign veterans in both parties said it was unusual to see the official side of the White House – including the president himself – making trouble in the GOP primary. Former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart recalled: “We did a lot of criticizing and tweaking the Republican field in 1996, but pretty much all out of the campaign.”

In 2004, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie recalled, “they left that stuff to the RNC, which seems more appropriate.”

What’s not unusual, said Republican strategist Mary Matalin, is to see members of one party trying to stir up trouble in the other party’s primary campaign.

“It’s not about the primaries, really. They know they can’t impact GOP voters. It’s just mischief making,” said Matalin, who helped steer the first President Bush’s 1992 reelection bid. “It’s not really heard beyond the chattering classes.”

Still, Democrats signaled that there’s no reason to think the kiss-of-death approach will let up anytime soon. For Romney, the most double-edged praise may come from Massachusetts, where Democrats have welcomed the chance to talk up their former governor.

Doug Rubin, a top political adviser to Patrick, called health care a rare point of agreement between Democrats and Romney, explaining: “The health care law is one where I think they [Romney and Patrick] both agree, that it’s been beneficial to Massachusetts.”

“Mitt Romney’s time as governor was terrible for Massachusetts,” said state Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh, ticking off a series of points – Romney’s out-of-state travel, his economic record, his record of jokes at the Bay State’s expense – that left bad feelings behind.

But on health care, Walsh shifted registers.

“When you can say something nice, it’s always polite and appropriate to acknowledge it,” Walsh said. “We’re proud of Mitt for being proud of it.