Not normally a good idea to accuse some subset of your primary base of being morons, but what does he have to lose? Anyone who agrees with Jeffress’s “competent Christian over competent non-Christian” formulation isn’t voting for him anyway. And given that he’s running even further to the center than Romney is, he’d probably lose among Jeffress fans even in a head-to-head contest with Mitt. Might as well vent some understandable anger and let it rip on the assumption that he has no chance at the nomination anyway and won’t need to worry about winning over those voters later. Romney, of course, does have to worry about winning over those voters, which is why he’s been avoiding this subject. But no more; Huntsman’s comments here are bound to put him on the spot tomorrow. E.g., “Governor Romney, do you agree with Governor Huntsman that Pastor Jeffress is a ‘moron’?” I guarantee you that the answer won’t be “yes,” but I’m curious to see how he threads the needle.
Exit question: Why would Huntsman complain about this being a trivial distraction and then drop a soundbite bomb so explosive that it’s bound to destroy any attention that might have been paid to his foreign-policy speech today?
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