Jon Huntsman, Conservative Conservationist, Can't Get The GOP Nomination

Jon Huntsman has some good things to say about science and environmentalism, which is why he can't get the increasingly reactionary GOP presidential nomination:

"We will be judged by how well we were stewards of those (natural) resources," said Huntsman, a veteran of three Republican administrations who until this spring was President Barack Obama's ambassador to China.

"Conservation is conservative. I'm not ashamed to be a conservationist. I also believe that science should be driving our discussions on climate change," he added.

Polling on the issue gives Huntsman little reason to embrace - or promote - his position or his moderate environmental record while governor on the environment explains where the GOP is on these issues.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's flip on environmentalism indicates where the GOP is on these issues:

Republican strategist Mike McKenna, who advises GOP leaders on energy policy and strategy, put it more bluntly. “Guys like Pawlenty now look like what they are — opportunists without authentic beliefs,” he wrote in an e-mail to National Journal. “That is why the issue is so damaging. It is totemic.”

 And Michele Bachmann knows how to stir up the GOP base when it comes to the environment:

In the GOP presidential debate two weeks ago, Bachmann called for limiting government’s scope by passing the “mother of all repeal bills” to target “job-killing regulations.”

“And I would begin with the EPA, because there is no other agency like the EPA. It should really be renamed the job-killing organization of America,” she said during the June 13 debate in New Hampshire.