Huntsman seems free to move toward the center

Not having to face another election can, for some politicians, set you free.

GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. certainly seems to be "free" these days, as he enters his second term.

Since ringing up a record majority win last November, Huntsman has pursued several political roads that someone facing traditional right-wing state Republican delegates in a few years may not want to walk.

(Huntsman says he won't run for governor again, and when any other Utah campaign is suggested — like a U.S. Senate race — he pooh-poohs the idea).

Huntsman has become — in many conservatives' eyes — a "moderate."

For Utah right-wingers, that's akin to being a "Jack Mormon" — someone raised in the LDS faith who has fallen away.

A special kind of contempt is held for "moderate" Republicans by the conservatives.

It is like you knew the way once but then turned your back on it.

Nationally, any number of GOP congressmen and senators are running to the right. Even if they voted for record-high federal deficits during the Bush administration, they are now born-again fiscal conservatives.

It is like the early 2000s didn't exist. Somehow, they were in a fog of fighting terrorists right and left, and any amount of spending was justified. But now Republicans, including Utah Republicans, are much displeased with Washington, D.C.

Of course, this all leads to many claims of hypocrisy.

And not to be outdone in that area, Utah conservative legislators even passed a resolution condemning the deficit spending by the federal government, all while grabbing every dime of the federal stimulus package they could — and by doing so saving any number of state government, higher and public education jobs and programs, at least for another 12 months.

But Huntsman is not one of those Republicans running to the right. In fact, he's been slowly moving to the center — and proud of it.

He joined a Western Climate Initiative along with that great RINO (Republican In Name Only) California GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Utah conservative legislators lambasted Huntsman for it and looked at ways of stopping such actions again).

He refused to call the Utah Legislature into a special session last December (keeping the budget-cutting wolves at bay for a bit).