Jon Huntsman can’t stop grumbling about the Republican Party

In an interview at BuzzFeed’s New York offices Monday, former Utah Governor, Ambassador, and presidential candidate Jon Huntsman assailed his fellow Republicans for their slowness to accept mainstream science, called on his party to revamp its positions on key social issues, and coyly hinted at his own future presidential ambitions…

“Typically, you’ll get a headline from an interview that will speak to the most salacious — not sentence, but clause, and they’ll ignore the other 99 wonderful, uplifting things you said about Republicans,” he lamented. “So, to some extent, the dialogue suffers from a dumbing down. Whatever will move content, because media companies make money by moving content.”

But he didn’t walk back any of his attacks either, and he went on to reiterate many of the same points he’s been making for years — that Republicans need to become pragmatic “conservative problem-solvers” (a term he used often during the campaign), that the party must to prepare for a “demographic shift,” and that conservatives have “a tremendous opportunity with young people” if only they will drop their more alienating rhetoric.

One question he didn’t answer: Why keep preaching this same message after years of failing to convert his party?