It seems like the announcement came out of nowhere this weekend:

Governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr. will resign and accept an appointment as ambassador to China, ABC 4 has confirmed.

The official announcement came during a press conference held by President Obama Saturday morning at the White House in the Diplomatic Room.

President Obama asked the people of Utah to forgive him for taking their
Governor but called the China ambassadorship a job, “as important as any
in the world.”

Governor Huntsman said Saturday that he wasn’t looking for a new job,
but “When the President of the United States asks you to step up and serve in a capacity like this, that to me is the end of the conversation.”

The reaction by many shocked political junkies was, “What?” The reaction by most others was, “Who?” Huntsman had very little name recognition before the president’s announcement, but his name had surfaced in various places in the past few weeks.

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In a brief ceremony at the White House today, President Barack Obama tapped Utah Governor John Huntsman to serve as United States Ambassador to China — his chief envoy to the world’s most populous country.

Reelected in 2008 by a record margin as a moderate Republican in an exceedingly conservative state, party elites and strategists were quick to point to the rising star as a potential challenger to the president.  But given today’s interesting political calculus, the prospect of Huntsman now staging a challenge to Obama is exceptionally low.

Having carved out a reputation as a would-be-modernizer and pragmatic conservative on divisive social issues, Huntsman was right to test the waters. It seems he waded a little too deep for Obama’s comfort, however.

No less than the chief architect of Obama’s campaign David Plouffe has expressed concern over Huntsman’s budding portfolio. While he admits no potential candidate makes him “shake in his shoes,” he concedes the potential of a Huntsman bid leaves him a “wee bit queasy.”

By all accounts, Huntsman stood a good chance at securing the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, if only for the fact that he is the conservative antithesis of Obama: He’s a moderate, young, and attractive politician.  Those are the grounds on which Obama won, and those are the grounds on which they fear he’ll lose it in 2012.

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Thanks to my chairmanship of the Executive Roundtable for the Republican Governor’s Association, I have had the privilege of knowing some of the party’s most influential leaders. This, plus concerns on the current Administration’s direction (think assault on free enterprise and march toward socialism) have led me to some early thoughts on who might both lead our party back and who might be our nominee in 2012.

So, for better, or for worse, based on my personal experiences, here are my top ten who are leading the debate today, some of whom we should be looking to for 2012. Given that I believe the solutions to most of our country’s problems aren’t found in Washington, you will find few on my list who serve in Congress.

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