Jon Huntsman is Out of the Race and Moderates Are Out in the Cold (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | I guess it's true that nice guys finish last.

Apparently mudslinging, verbal attacks, petulance and double-talk win out over reason, civility and a sane tax reform plan.

I just read in the New York Times that Jon Huntsman announced he is stepping out of the race for the GOP nomination for the office of president, and will endorse rival Mitt Romney.

According to firstpost.com, Huntsman has run a campaign based on civility, with minimal focus on other candidates. Instead he has tried to build confidence in his ability to run the country based on sound ideas, experience, a tax reform plan that was endorsed by the Wall Street Journal, and diplomacy. Unfortunately, it seems that this is not what GOP voters want.

Now that Huntsman has left the race, I am certain I will have no choice but to vote for Barack Obama, regardless of whether I am happy with his presidency. It would have been excellent to have been given a choice I could feel good about.

I am amazed that although many people don't like Mitt Romney, he remains the front-runner. Is that because his vast wealth gives him an edge when it comes to campaigning? Is it because Newt Gingrich is getting nastier the lower he falls in the polls? Rick Santorum has managed to scare the gay and lesbian population, as well as many women voters. Rick Perry is still around, although I'm not sure why. The GOP will continue its relentless stumble forward to choose the candidate that appalls us the least, and with the sane candidate out of the race it will likely get very ugly.

What has happened to American voters? Why is it the candidate who refused to play dirty is out of the race? How short sighted has the American public become?

Huntsman had a fine record, a cool head and some sane solutions. All of the other GOP candidates have managed to appear tactless on more than one occasion. Gingrich is so corrupt that there is a website devoted to exposing his hypocrisy. How is it that he is still in the race and Huntsman is not?

I just don't get it. I guess I'll go back to being a good Democrat and start working for the Obama campaign.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120116/cm_ac/10840085_jon_huntsman_is_out_of_the_race_and_moderates_are_out_in_the_cold

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