MYRTLE BEACH, SC — Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman announced Monday he was bowing out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination and threw his support behind front-running contender Mitt Romney.
With his family behind him, Huntsman said, “Today I am suspending my campaign for the presidency. I believe it is now time for our party to unite around the candidate best equipped to defeat Barack Obama. Despite our differences and the space between us on some of the issues, I believe that candidate is Governor Mitt Romney.”
Shortly afterward, Romney tweeted, “I salute Jon Huntsman & his wife Mary Kaye. He ran a campaign based on unity not division & love of country. I appreciate his support.”
Speaking at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center just days before South Carolina’s primary, Huntsman made an appeal for GOP unity, saying, “this is the most important election of our lifetime” but the “toxic form of our political discourse” had “degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the American people.”
Huntsman’s three adult daughters, whose playful tweets had won a following during the campaign, issued one more just before his announcement: “Many flames burn out in politics, our Dad’s has just been ignited. What an incredible journey for our family. Thanks for all the support!”
Huntsman was the only Republican candidate never to see a surge in the polls, and the fact that he was unable to ignite enthusiasm with voters speaks to the peculiarity surrounding his bid, FOXNews.com reported.
According to the report, there has rarely been such a wide gap between a presidential candidate’s positive media coverage and his election performance.
Officials and analysts say the media buzz around Huntsman, who both launched and ended his presidential campaign with an appeal for civility, was rooted in several factors. Foremost was the novelty of a candidate running against his former boss, since Huntsman had been ambassador to China under Obama.
Then, FOX said, there was his pitch as the centrist, self-proclaimed “sane Republican” who openly tweaked his rivals for their positions.
“To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy,” he tweeted last August.
US Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who worked as Huntsman’s gubernatorial campaign manager and chief of staff when Huntsman was Utah governor, told FOXNews.com Huntsman’s centrist leanings were attractive to the media, as was “his proximity to Barack Obama.”
But, Chaffetz said, despite Huntsman’s truly conservative record, he did not have a “natural base” with the party.
“Mitt Romney built his over the course of years,” he said. “Newt Gingrich is the former speaker of the House. Jon Huntsman just spent the last couple years working for Barack Obama in China. Probably not bumping into a lot of people from Manchester (N.H.).”
For a candidate so far back in the polls, Huntsman received a considerable number of newspaper endorsements, including big ones from the Boston Globe and South Carolina’s The State, which called him “bold,” a “realist” and “the best candidate to seize this moment in GOP history.”
Although he is throwing his support behind Romney, Huntsman has had his differences with the former Massachusetts governor in the past.
During a debate in New Hampshire, Romney said the person who should represent the Republican Party was not someone who called Obama a “remarkable leader,” as Huntsman reportedly did.
“This nation is divided because of attitudes like that,” Huntsman responded, to applause.
In a December interview with CNN, without mentioning Romney and Gingrich, by name, Huntsman said they were “running for ‘Panderer-in-Chief’ more than they are anything else.”
When asked why he had not received the surge in support enjoyed by other candidates, including Gingrich, Huntsman responded, “Well, maybe because I don’t light my hair on fire.”
Huntsman won less than one percent of the vote in Iowa after he chose not to compete in the state’s caucuses and a third place finish with 17 percent in New Hampshire, where he had focused his efforts.
The most recent South Carolina poll had him in sixth place with five percent of the vote.
His withdrawal is the fifth of the GOP race, following those of businessman Herman Cain, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann.