Randi Rhodes: Era of the Wizard

Jon Huntsman announced his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination today. If you don’t know who Jon Huntsman is yet, don’t worry. You’re never going to have to know. Huntsman is like the crew member you never saw before on a episode of Star Trek that gets sent down to a planet with a landing party of Kirk, Spock, Chekov, and Bones. You don’t have to know who he is. He’s going to be eliminated, and very quickly.

The setting for Huntsman’s announcement had the Statue of Liberty in the background. But the statue had its back turned to Jon Huntsman. As visuals go, I could think of a better one than having Lady Liberty seeming to say he could kiss her ass. Hunstman is a former CEO from a rich family. But you already knew that from the fact that he’s a Republican candidate for president. Huntsman may have trouble with conservatives. He served in Barack Obama’s administration, as ambassador to China. Conservatives would be more likely to vote for him if he had been the Premiere of China.

Huntsman wants voters to know that in high school, he used to play keyboards in a prog-rock band called Wizard. Believe me, Jon, you don’t want anyone to know that. Prog-rock? Really? I’d rather vote for someone who played in a band that had safety pins stuck through their cheeks. Hell, I’d rather vote for someone who still had safety pins stuck through their cheeks. Not only was he in a prog-rock band, he was in a prog-rock band named Wizard, which, on the list of most generic prog-rock band names, appears at number 1. It actually appears at numbers 1 through 10. I’m sorry, but you cannot have been in a prog-rock band and be the President of the United States. Prime Minister of Germany? Definitely. Or go run for leader of Middle Earth or something. Of course, Huntsman’s message could strike a chord. But if it’s like the rest of prog-rock, that chord will just lead to a pretentious organ solo based on a concerto by Bach.

Oh, and then there’s the little matter of Jon Huntsman’s family chemical company doing business with Iran—in fact, selling deadly weapons materials to Iran. That’s enough to sink his candidacy right there. Throw in a propensity for self-indulgent keyboard solos, and you’ve got yourself a classic Star Trek “expendable crewman.” Watch out for Romulans, Jon.

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