“Vouchers are my main issue, too!” Huntsman replied. “Vouchers are the reason I am running for governor.” He waxed enthusiastically, “I want to go down in history as the voucher governor.” (These are direct quotes, to which I have two witnesses.).

On the strength of his display of conviction, I donated $75,000 to Huntsman’s campaign — becoming (I believe) his largest financial backer. In November, 2004 Huntsman won the election.

During the 2005 legislative session, now-Gov. Huntsman scuttled the progress of a voucher bill that had momentum in the legislature. State legislators in 2006 drafted another voucher bill that would have created the most universal, Friedmanesque school choice in the nation. Once again, to the dismay of Utah’s school choice movement, Huntsman worked behind the scenes to water it down, then signed a highly attenuated version…

I sent word, asking, “I thought that this was your ‘main issue’, and ‘the reason you ran for governor’?” Huntsman replied with only a text: “Campaigning for vouchers is outside my comfort zone.”