Ex-Obama envoy enters race for White House

FORMER Utah governor Jon Huntsman has joined the Republican presidential contest, pledging to run a civil campaign and claiming that he and President Barack Obama both love the US but have different visions of its future.

Huntsman, who until this spring was Obama’s ambassador to China, entered the fight for the opposition nomination to take on Obama in 2012 at the same venue Ronald Reagan formally began his general election campaign in 1980.

Huntsman, an aide to Reagan who served in two other Republican administrations, had been expected to join the contest for months.

“This is the hour when we choose our future. I’m Jon Huntsman and I’m running for president of the United States,” the silver-haired Huntsman said.

He called the US economy “totally unacceptable” and took a gentle swipe at Obama’s 2008 campaign themes of hope and change, saying the country needs “leadership that knows we need more than hope, leadership that knows we need answers”.

Huntsman said he respects Obama but added that he and the president have “a difference of opinion on how to help the country we both love. But the question each of us wants the voters to answer is, who will be the better president, not who’s the better American?”

Huntsman has criticised US foreign policy, saying the country is over-committed to world trouble spots.