Is there a "Huntspiracy"?

[argentarius]

They want to build him for this reason: Huntsman is not a religious candidate. His views on climate change and evolution and gay rights make him someone that the media wants to root for.

Gary Johnson:
Believes in evolution
Believes in climate change
Is gay-friendly
Was a 2-term governor

Why won't the media cover him (he's living off scraps right now while Huntsman is wasting his large amount of coverage)?

Johnson also advocates for legalizing marijuana. 
I think the mainstream media writes him off as a result.

But the whole idea is Huntsman is controversial.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Definitely, especially when compared to Gary Johnson. The excuses are pathetic too. Why is it more interesting that a republican believes in man-made global warming and evolution than when a republican believes in both of those and that we should legalise drugs?

Huntsman's more establishment in that I don't the he would attempt to challenge anything as opposed to the way a Libertarian would.

[Guderian]

They want to build him for this reason: Huntsman is not a religious candidate. His views on climate change and evolution and gay rights make him someone that the media wants to root for.

Gary Johnson:
Believes in evolution
Believes in climate change
Is gay-friendly
Was a 2-term governor

Why won't the media cover him (he's living off scraps right now while Huntsman is wasting his large amount of coverage)?

Johnson also advocates for legalizing marijuana. 
I think the mainstream media writes him off as a result.

But the whole idea is Huntsman is controversial.

That Atlantic article explains it well - Huntsman is "controversial" because he challenges GOP base. If you challenge bipartisan assumptions, like drug prohibition, you're not "controversial", you're a non-entity. Also, Johnson is not a kind of guy media connects with, he seems they probably see him as some backwater weirdo while Huntsman is the guy they would love to be friends with.

Also, don't forget the hair. Media will whore themselves for any candidate with soap opera star hair, just like they did for that pathetic empty suit also known as John Edwards.

[Username MechaRFK]

They want to build him for this reason: Huntsman is not a religious candidate. His views on climate change and evolution and gay rights make him someone that the media wants to root for.

Gary Johnson:
Believes in evolution
Believes in climate change
Is gay-friendly
Was a 2-term governor

Why won't the media cover him (he's living off scraps right now while Huntsman is wasting his large amount of coverage)?

Gary Johnson hasn't been in any public office since January of 2003 when he left office. Plus he wants to end the war on drugs that doesn't get him too fuzzy with the establishment.

[The Mikado]

Huntsman really is part of a GOP "Establishment" that doesn't, as a practical matter, exist anymore.  Not that the GOP doesn't have an Establishment still, but they've found it practical to become self-hating and "anti-Establishment" in order to get street cred with the grassroots.  Huntsman never got the memo on that (probably partially because he spent the last 2 years in China).

[RogueBeaver]

They are definitely wildly overselling him and the debate threshold being set at 4 rather than 5% makes me think they're including him for no good reason.. If the MSM were being honest they'd give him the same attention as Gingrich/Cain/Santorum or them the same attention as him.

[Averroës Nix]

I don't think it's fair to compare Huntsman to:

1. Newt Gingrich, who's been out of politics for over a decade and is running a vanity campaign that is most notable for the total lack of seriousness with which the candidate is approaching it.

2. Herman Cain, a businessman with no political experience, chiefly notable for peaking at 10-15% in polls early this summer, in the brief period between Donald Trump's idiocy and Bachmann's declaration of candidacy.

3. Rick Santorum, a former Senator who was last seen suffering one of the most embarrassing defeats of any figure in contemporary politics.

Even if Huntsman is polling poorly, there are reasons to take him more seriously than these candidates. He can self-fund! He's served as a Governor and as Ambassador to China! His record deserves notice. (And it's a lot more real than Gingrich's alleged "ideas" or Cain's supposed oratory.

That said, his campaign has been managed badly (he could not have hoped to live up to the hype surrounding his announcement even with a well-run campaign). He's positioned himself as a pragmatic moderate in an election in which that seems like the last thing that anyone wants. And his warm relationship with the media is a liability, not an asset.

Huntsman has been over-covered. But he's not unique: Bachmann, Gingrich, Trump, Palin, and Cain are also receiving coverage disproportionate to their actual effect on the process. (And these candidates, in my view, are all TOTALLY implausible, whereas Huntsman is merely NEARLY implausible.)

[Simfan34]

Okay, we have two bad polls putting him at 4-5% while before he was at 1% nationally. We have two bad polls putting him at 10% in NH and a mediocre one at 7%

Huntspiracy, Huntsmentum, or plain old bad polling?

[milhouse24]

He's the manchurian candidate controlled by the Obama administration, and the media favors Obama and wants him to win.