Jon Huntsman

On the bright side, Jon Huntsman Jr., the candidate whose poll numbers languished in the low single digits for most of the campaign, hit the high teens when real people finally got to vote in New Hampshire on Tuesday. On the dimmer side, that was only good enough for third place. The man who has no chance of winning the Republican nomination for president, Ron Paul, did much better, taking nearly a quarter of the votes. And the man who is most likely to walk away with the nomination, Mitt Romney, garnered more than a third.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of April 7 -13, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SERIES My Cat From Hell A deaf and blind cat stops using its litter box in the season premiere. 8 p.m. Animal Planet That's followed at 9 by the premiere of "My Cat From Hell: Scratch Tracks. " Gruden's QB Camp USC's Matt Barkley has his turn in this new episode.

After taking to Twitter last week to declare his belief in evolution and global warming, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. on Sunday again sought to cast himself as a moderate in a field of more extreme Republican presidential candidates. In an interview with ABC's Jake Tapper, Huntsman said he "wouldn't necessarily trust any" of his opponents on the economy, blasted Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann for suggesting that as president she would bring per-gallon gas prices below $2, and called Texas Gov. Rick Perry "unelectable.

Former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, long rumored to be considering a challenge to Gov. Jerry Brown, filed paperwork Thursday that allows him to begin raising money for a gubernatorial campaign. Maldonado, 45, is a Republican who previously was elected to the state Senate and Assembly and was mayor of Santa Maria, where he lives. As a state senator, he was among a handful of GOP legislators to cross party lines to vote for a tax increase in 2009. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger subsequently appointed him lieutenant governor.

Young people have been invoked over and over during the debate about Social Security, as in, the system is going to be broke by the time they reach retirement age. A young man from Northern California asked a simple question: "Of every dollar I earn, how much do you think I deserve to keep?" Bachmann could be heard off camera, "Oh, I love that question. " Unfortunately, she did not get a chance to answer it. Only one candidate got to address it - Huntsman, who talked about personal tax rates and lowering the corporate tax rate to 25%. "I can tell you that by doing that with our tax code, it will leave you and your generation a whole lot better off," Huntsman said.

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. defended his reputation as an environmentalist during a speech tonight to a GOP environmental group. "Conservation is conservative," the former Utah governor told about 200 people at a Republicans for Environmental Protection dinner in Washington. "I'm not ashamed to be a conservationist. " Added Huntsman: "I also believe that science should be driving our discussions on climate change. " His words were unremarkable, except perhaps in some Republican circles, where Huntsman's environmental views are considered outside the mainstream.

As presidential candidate Jon Huntsman seeks to gain some traction in the GOP race, he's shaking up his campaign team. His campaign manager, Susie Wiles, resigned Thursday. The campaign said Huntsman's candidacy was moving into a more aggressive phase. "Susie has served the campaign well and was vital in getting it off the ground in such a short time frame,” said John Weaver, a senior advisor to Huntsman. “In just under three months, Governor Huntsman has returned from China, launched a campaign and created a strong infrastructure in the three early primary states.

Laying out an economic blueprint in advance of his GOP rivals and President Obama, Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. called for a major overhaul of the income tax system that would eliminate popular deductions for home mortgages and charitable deductions as part of a sweeping reduction in tax rates. Huntsman, criticizing his Republican opponents and Obama for failing to provide leadership on the nation's most pressing issue, called his ideas "straight-forward and common sense.

Stepping back out on the campaign trail in New Hampshire after the Christmas break, GOP contender Jon Huntsman joined a chorus of his rivals Wednesday in criticizing   Ron Paul - calling the Texas congressman "unelectable. " During a town hall style meeting in Pelham near the Massachusetts border Wednesday night, Huntsman urged voters to look beyond the polls and punditry to select their candidate. The former Utah governor called GOP frontunner Mitt Romney, who led his nearest rival by more than 25 points here in a new CNN poll, a product of "the establishment" and then moved on to Paul: "He's not electable at the end of the day," Huntsman told his audience.

It wasn't that long ago that Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman turned the spotlight on his belief that global warming is real with a tweet aimed at differentiating himself within the crowded GOP primary field. “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming,” Huntsman wrote on Twitter in late August. "Call me crazy.” But when the former ambassador to China and former governor of Utah faced a crowd of bloggers at the conservative Heritage Foundation on Tuesday, he seemed to have softened his stance on the issue.

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Jan. 13 - 19, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SATURDAY Good Morning America (N) 7 a.m. KABC Chris Matthews Howard Fineman; Liz Marlantes; John Harris; Kasie Hunt. (N) 5 p.m. KNBC; Sunday 5:30 a.m. KNBC McLaughlin Group 6:30 p.m. KCET SUNDAY Today The Golden Globe Awards. (N) 6 a.m. KNBC Good Morning America (N) 6 a.m. KABC State of the Union Gun control: David Keene, NRA. Gun control; Newtown shootings: Gov. Daniel P. Malloy (D-Conn.)

Kevin James, the sole Republican among the main contenders in the Los Angeles mayor's race, raised a little more than $42,000 in the final quarter of 2012, but spent more than four times that amount, largely on high-priced political consultants. James, an attorney and former talk radio host who has never held elected office, spent $178,595 in the fourth quarter, a few thousand shy of top-tier candidate and key rival Wendy Greuel, according to campaign finance documents filed with the City Ethics Commission on Thursday.

ROCHESTER, N.H. - It wasn't until the mailers began targeting her as a union stooge that Julie Brown realized how much her party had changed. Brown registered as a Republican on her 21st birthday in 1956. She was an Ike girl in the 1950s, riding a bandwagon and handing out pins dressed in a red felt skirt, blue sweater and white blouse. She worked for Maine's Republican Sen. William S. Cohen in the 1980s, and organized on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. before last winter's New Hampshire primary.

Former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. is stepping back from his remarks drawing a link between the Republican Party and China's Communist Party, made during a candid media interview Sunday. During an appearance at New York City's 92nd Street Y, Huntsman expressed his thoughts on being disinvited from a Florida fundraiser in March after he made a call for a third party to join the standard two-party mold. "This is what they do in China on party matters if you talk off-script," he said.

Reporting from Charleston, S.C. -- Under the looming live oaks at the College of Charleston on Friday, Stephen Colbert delivered a clinic on how to produce a whiz-bang political rally. Significantly, not one of the Republican candidates this year has exhibited the star power to bring off such an extravaganza themselves. Thousands of students packed into the old college's walled central yard. Many had waited for hours to see Colbert and they cheered wildly when the comedy genius from Comedy Central marched in. Cheerleaders and a marching band led the way. A gospel choir was poised to sing with Colbert onstage.

Stephen Merchant: An article about Stephen Merchant in the Jan. 16 Calendar said that his TV and radio shows took off in the mid-1990s. It was actually the mid-'00s. Jon Huntsman: An article in the Jan. 15 Image section about the way presidential candidates dress misspelled Jon Huntsman's first name as John. Council election: An article in the Jan. 15 California section about the Los Angeles City Council runoff between Joe Buscaino and state Assemblyman Warren Furutani said that after the Pearl Harbor attack, Furutani's grandparents were among Japanese Americans sent to interment camps.

Utah Democrats launched a preemptive strike against Jon Huntsman on the eve of his presidential campaign kickoff, knocking him for his shifting positions on issues important to Republican voters. Democrats in Huntsman's home state are parodying the former governor's enigmatic preview videos that feature a man on a motorcycle speeding through scenic parts of Utah. They say Huntsman is "riding away from his record. " (see videos below) "The Jon Huntsman that is announcing his candidacy tomorrow is not the Jon Huntsman that most Utahans have known," Utah Democratic Party chairman Wayne Holland told reporters in a conference call Monday.

GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman is the latest candidate to get the backing of a tailor-made "super PAC" -- complete with top-tier talent formerly with his official campaign. Fred Davis, the GOP ad man whose off-kilter contributions to the political lexicon include " demon sheep ," has signed on to the newly formed "Our Destiny PAC," which filed papers with the Federal Election Commission last week and includes, among its officials, an executive from Huntsman Corp., a global chemical company owned by the candidate's father, Jon Huntsman Sr. Politico reported today that the corporation said it has no affiliation to the PAC. Davis, who was with the official Huntsman campaign until he resigned on July 27, will "be an important part of the PAC's team," according to the group's website . The move, first spotted by Real Clear Politics , gives Davis a bigger piggy bank to play with, as independent-expenditure groups are allowed to solicit unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions.

Jon Huntsman Jr. may have purged his website and multimedia channels of any hard-hitting attacks on Mitt Romney before he turned around and endorsed him Monday. But some promise to live on courtesy of Democrats, who never miss an opportunity to jab at the man they've long viewed as the likeliest Republican nominee. On Monday afternoon, the Democratic National Committee began circulating a video that has a choice selection of the Republican-on-Republican combat. In one segment, Huntsman questions Romney's electability, accusing him of "pandering," and attacking him over his recent remark about "firing people.

Jon Huntsman's final chore as a presidential candidate will be to leave the 2012 race Monday with his reputation intact or, ideally, enhanced. For presidential contenders, the best days of their campaigns are often the first and last ones. But not everyone is up to the challenge. How many people remember what Rep. Michele Bachmann said in her concession speech after losing Iowa, less than two weeks ago? Huntsman's late-starting candidacy began inauspiciously, following his return from China last spring.  Reporters attending the announcement event had their Huntsman press tags unceremoniously taken away before Huntsman and his attractive family arrived at the site.  Embarrassingly, the candidate's first name was misspelled as “John” on the tags.