La WMUR-TV, filial de la ABC en New Hampshire, ha hecho un pequeño reportaje-acercamiento al grupo de insiders que están organizando la campaña de Jon Huntsman en el estado de granito.
He hasn't made a single campaign stop and his latest job is in the Barack Obama administration, but Jon Huntsman is picking up presidential buzz among well-connected Republicans in New Hampshire.
A small group of Granite Staters have begun organizing for Huntsman, a former Utah governor who is leaving his position as the U.S. ambassador to China this week.
In January, he signaled that he might have another run in him, and that has led supporters in New Hampshire to start laying the groundwork for a potential run.
"We're involved in trying to put together an organization-in-waiting, so to speak," said former Executive Councilor Peter Spaulding.
(...) A Democrat, former ambassador George Bruno, of Manchester, knows a little about creating something from nothing. He started a movement locally in 2003 to draft Wesley Clark into the presidential race.
He said Clark's campaign was tougher to get started because his candidate had never before run for office.
"I don't think that is the situation at all with Jon Huntsman," Bruno said. "He's a statesman at this point and a former governor and a very popular former governor of the state of Utah."
A draft movement with more similarities to the Huntsman effort might be found in 1964. Henry Cabot Lodge was another Republican U.S. ambassador in an important Asian country serving an incumbent Democratic president -- Lyndon Johnson.
Even though Lodge never set foot in the Granite State that year, a group of volunteers worked hard, and he won the New Hampshire primary anyway.
Those behind the movement to draft Huntsman said they hope he makes the state more of a priority than Lodge did. (...)
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