Unfazed, Jon Huntsman Jr. stays the course

If he builds it, they will come.

Jon Huntsman Jr. believes that if he stays the course with his campaign for president, the support of Republican voters will eventually sway in his favor due to his broad appeal in a general-election format.

"People aren't paying attention to the race. … Labor Day is kind of when people begin to focus on the race," Huntsman said Thursday in an interview on PBS NewsHour. "I like our position as we move into September, October, November; because in the end, the Republican Party, I believe, is going to want to nominate someone who can go the distance, someone who can be electable, someone who brings real-world solutions to the problems that we have; someone, I believe, who can bring the numbers together that actually spells victory."

Huntsman's outlook echoes the forecast of New York Magazine's John Hellemann, who writes in the magazine's August issue that, in spite of the fluctuating support flavor-of-the-month GOP presidential candidates may receive, Huntsman and Mitt Romney are the two Republicans with the best chance to defeat Pres. Barack Obama in 2012.

"Despite the sway of various grassroots conservative movements, the GOP has reliably chosen its nominees from its Establishment wing, valuing electability over doctrinal purity," Hellemann wrote. "For Romney and Huntsman, this time-tested tendency should be a cause for comfort and for hope, respectively. The two men are, after all, the most Establishmentarian candidates in the field, and also the most likely to forge candidacies capable of winning in a general election."

In the latest Gallup poll, Huntsman garnered 1 percent of the votes to finish in eighth place among declared Republican presidential hopefuls.

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