"Big Daddy"

McKay Coppins y David A. Graham, de The Daily Beast, nos hablan de la influencia de Jon Huntsman Sr. en la carrera política de su hijo:

Jon Huntsman Jr. stood proudly in the national spotlight last week when he officially declared his presidential candidacy at a park in New Jersey, strategically positioning his podium to include the Statue of Liberty as the camera-ready backdrop. But while broadcasters happily captured the choreographed scenery, there was a far more influential figure than Lady Liberty looming in the candidate’s background: his father.

Jon Huntsman Sr. is relatively unknown nationally. But he is as close to royalty as one can get in Utah. A self-made billionaire who struck it rich when his company invented the clamshell containers used for McDonald’s Big Macs, he is one of the wealthiest people in the world today, and has joined Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in pledging to donate the majority of his fortune to charity. Having given more than $1 billion to various causes, his name is now plastered across tall buildings and prominent institutions throughout the Beehive State—from the high-tech Huntsman Cancer Institute to Utah State University’s Jon M. Huntsman School of Business.

He holds a prominent ecclesiastical position in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was known in the 1990s to regularly loan his private jet to the church’s then-president, Gordon B. Hinckley, for his world travels. Mention Huntsman Sr.’s name in Utah, and the first reaction is practically unanimous praise.

Continúa (...)