Confidential Huntsman Memos Outline Presidential Strategy

Confidential memos from Jon Huntsman's campaign circulated to donors this week outline the presidential hopeful’s strategy to snag the GOP nomination and call for raising the former Utah governor's profile in comparison to a “very weak” Republican field, CNN reports.
 

“Jon has put together one of the strongest campaign teams in the race and has a clear path to the nomination,” wrote campaign manager Matt David in one of the memos. “As debate season ramps up and campaigns begin to hit the airwaves, we’re confident that Jon’s message and background will set him apart from the field.”

Huntsman Finance Chair Jeff Wright emailed the confidential memos to campaign donors Tuesday, which were later provided to CNN by a Republican source.

David wrote that “despite media-driven labels,” Huntsman is not a moderate but rather “a conservative problem solver.”

The memos were in part designed to raise Huntsman’s polling numbers. In the most recent CNN/ORC national survey of Republican voters, Huntsman registered at just 1 percent, falling behind nearly every other GOP candidate.

In a separate polling memo, Huntsman pollster Whit Ayres dismissed early national polls as “utterly useless.” In August 2007, he noted, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson topped the field while the ultimate Iowa winner, Mike Huckabee, was at 2 percent.