Por qué Huntsman debería ser tomado en serio

New York Times:

(...) Those who laugh, though, should keep a few things in mind about next year’s campaign. One is that the presidential primary electorate will be very different from the 2010 primaries for House and Senate, which, like all off-year elections, attracted a relatively small number of Republican voters (even where turnout was higher than usual). In New Hampshire, where Tea Party types overran the state Legislature and wrested control of the state party last year, turnout in the 2010 primaries was under 20 percent, as it usually is.

The turnout in next year’s presidential primary, on the other hand, will probably reach 60 percent. That means the influence of the most conservative, most motivated activists will almost certainly be diluted.

Second, it’s vital to remember that next year’s primaries will be the first since 1996 where Democrats haven’t had their own nomination fight going on. In other words, in the last two contested Republican primary seasons, independents in “open states” like New Hampshire split their votes between Republicans and Democrats. But this year, all of them will be voting for a Republican.

This is huge. Consider that had it not been for all the independents who voted for John McCain in 2000, Bill Bradley might well have won the Democratic primary in New Hampshire — and who knows what would have happened after that. (I’ll leave that to Newt Gingrich to explore in one of his alternative histories.)

All of this suggests, I think, that a less doctrinaire candidate might have a real shot in New Hampshire, once the campaign really gets underway and voters get a chance to assess the field. That’s when all the polling actually starts to mean something. (...)