Plus his seeming support for some Obama programs are problematic for his conservative credentials. All in all I don't think Huntsman adds anything to the Republican Presidential candidate debates.
JERSEY CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) – Republican Jon Huntsman, the former U.S. ambassador to China , entered his party's 2012 presidential race on Tuesday pledging to make "hard decisions" to prevent America sinking into a debt disaster.
Huntsman upset the White House in April by quitting his job in Beijing to take on his former boss, President Barack Obama who appointed him in 2009.
The former governor of Utah , Huntsman, 51, is lagging in polls of Republicans but has a high profile in the media and worries the Democratic Obama administration because of his possible cross-party appeal.
Speaking, with the Statue of Liberty in the background, Huntsman pledged to turn America around.
"For the first time in our history, we are passing down to the next generation a country that is less powerful, less compassionate, less competitive and less confident than the one we got," Huntsman said. "This, ladies and gentlemen, is totally unacceptable and totally un-American," he said.
He was speaking at Liberty State Park in New Jersey , the site where former President Ronald Reagan launched his bid for the White House in 1980.
If Huntsman picks up traction in opinion polls, he could rival former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for the role of the moderate Republican candidate.
"We must make hard decisions that are necessary to avert disaster," the former Utah governor said, painting a bleak picture of the debt problem and the huge budget deficit, due to hit $1.4 trillion this fiscal year.
"If we don't, in less than a decade, every dollar of federal revenue will go to covering the costs of Medicare, Social Security and interest payments on our debt. Meanwhile, we'll sink deeper into debt for everything else - from national security to disaster relief," Huntsman said.
Huntsman paints his knowledge of China , America 's main global commercial rival and foreign lender, as a strength. But some conservative voters see his working for Obama as a liability.
Huntsman learned to speak Chinese while on a Mormon mission to Taiwan during his college years. He and his wife Mary Kaye Cooper have seven children: five biological and two adopted from China and India .
He promised to conduct his campaign "on the high road" and respect Republican rivals as well as Obama, who leads most opinion polls of the 2012 presidential race.
"I respect the president. The question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president; not who's the better American."
DEBT WOES
Congressional Republicans and Democrats are debating how to slash federal spending. But bipartisan talks have made investors worldwide jittery as they raise the specter, however small, of a debt default.
The Obama administration has warned it will run out of money to pay bills if Congress does not raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit by August 2.
Huntsman said he tackled many of the same issues in Utah and managed to keep the state's AAA credit rating.
Huntsman lacks national name recognition and many polls put his support at less than 2 percent but he left his governorship in August 2009 with sky-high approval ratings and a reputation for fiscal conservatism.
His more moderate views on social issues could make his path to winning the Republican nomination difficult. Familiarity with voters is also a problem.
A recent look by the University of New Hampshire's survey center showed Huntsman favored by only 1 percent of voters in the state, which is influential because of its early February primary. Seventy-one percent said they had not heard of him.
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