You obviously know very little about Huntsman. His record as Utah Gov. is very conservative. The only thing moderate about him is the tone in which he speaks to the public.

As far as Mitt he hasn't abandoned his principles. His guiding principle has always been the same. Say and do whatever it takes to win the specific election at hand.

I guess you didn't realize the the Tea Party was actually started at a Ron Paul rally. The Tea Party has been co-opted by the corporate welfare wing of the rep. party since the last election and that may be why he doesn't really declare much.

You're probably right. All I know is that he was part of the current administration. But he's certainly moderate juxtaposed to the other wild things.

I agree with smoothseas in #2, not in #3.  The Tea party was not started at a Paul rally.  However, the Tea Party and Paul have the most in common.  Paul is the one candidate who has talked about CUTTING spending - not cutting the rate of growth.

But his foreign policy is not good.

I totally agree on that one. It might be a good ideal and might have been possible to implement decades ago but seeing how we are in the middle of a rat's nest we have to deal with it not ignore it.

Do some research on the the origins of the Tea Party and the YAL...Young Americans for Liberty. It was formed towards the end of Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. These movements sprouted out of a  Ron Paul event commemorating the Boston Tea Party during his campaign in 2007. Many of the people who initially staged rallies and demonstrations using the actual Tea Party label worked for the Ron Paul 08 campaign.

Which to me is not a problem. Is it better to actually take an appointment and have some influence on the decision making process or simply cede one's influence because of "party loyalty"? Who are should they be serving anyhow the people or their party?

Not really. Romney, Gingrich, Perry and Santorum are all big federal government proponents, all pro corporate welfare and all more interested in their own power grab as opposed to actually doing something for the people of this country. Remember...actions speak louder than words. So look at their voting records and actions not the BS that comes out of their mouths or the mouths of their surrogates. What they mean by "smaller government" is privatizing services so they can reward their friends and sit on those corporate boards or lobby for them when they leave office. It never costs the taxpayer less however they certainly love to put the tax code in their favor when they can. They may try to convince you that they are states right people but their actions show quite the contrary. Ron Paul is his own man as far as I can see. Does what he says, says what he means most if not all the time. I don't agree with some of his ideology however I respect him most for his honesty. As for Huntsmen. There is nothing moderate about his record as Governor of Utah. He ran a fiscally and socially conservative administration and the record proves that.

I have - I did not say that RP and the TP have nothing in common.  They do.  But just because you have the same goal does not mean you have the same views on everything.  As I said, I think RP is closest to the Tea Party on the TP's stated goals. And that is no doubt because they come from the same corner (the conservative side).  But the TP is a reflective response to what people saw as the coming excesses (with a virtual monopoly of power by the democrats, and Rahm's boast of no crises going to waste).

I was simply pointing out the origins of the movement, not on differences in views between the RP and TP .After all the Tea Party is a movement not a political party. Not to mention the Libertarian Party which "markets" many of their candidates under the RP Brand for various reasons. Personally I'm not much for tags anymore although they are useful for generalizations. The two main parties are more about capturing and keeping power than anything else.

As far as reflective of what was coming I would say it was more like reflexive to what was already happening but the difference between that is not much more than semantics.