Huntsman joins GOP presidential race

JERSEY CITY -- Republican Jon Huntsman joined the presidential race yesterday with the Statue of Liberty over his shoulder, asserting that he and President Barack Obama both love their country but have far different visions of its future. He pledged to halt an "un-American" fading of national power and confidence.

Hoping to set himself apart from other candidates, he also promised to run a civil campaign for the GOP nomination at a time of heated partisan rhetoric.

The former Utah governor focused on Obama, not his Republican rivals, in his announcement address in the patriotic setting where Ronald Reagan launched his fall presidential campaign in 1980. Huntsman said, "The question each of us wants the voters to answer is, 'Who will be the better president, not who's the better American.' "

As for his pledge of civility, he said, "Our political debates today are corrosive and not reflective of the belief that Abe Lincoln espoused back in his day, that we are a great country because we are a good country."

The announcement was all formality for Huntsman, 51. His aides have been planning the bid for months, and the candidate himself has spent the weeks since he returned to the United States from China visiting early primary voting states, courting donors and building a full-fledged campaign.

He joins a GOP field that includes some candidates far better known than he as Republicans search for a strong challenger to Obama, a Democrat seeking his second term. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads most early national polls and some surveys in states that hold the first contests of the Republican nomination fight.

Huntsman's wife, Mary Kaye, and six of his seven children joined him for the announcement. The family made a dramatic entrance, walking together across a large field before taking the stage.

The multimillionaire businessman stressed his record in Utah, where he won praise from conservative groups for cutting taxes and recruiting new business to the state. He served as governor from 2005 to early 2009, when Obama offered him the China post.

In his speech, Huntsman tried to embrace Reagan's signature optimism about the United States even as he warned that the country could slip into decline.

"For the first time in 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," he said. "This, ladies and gentlemen, is totally unacceptable, and it is totally un-American."