YouSaid · the spoken record

Jon Huntsman

lines on the record
74
first
2016-02-22
most recent
2016-02-22
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1
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  1. “Achieve if elected governor, very specific points that I worked out. And I just took this on the road. And it was probably one of the most enjoyable years of our lives. And the kids kind of went along.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “But we sorted through it all, and I thought long and hard about the possibility of running for governor. And with the encouragement of some people in the state who also thought it would be a pretty good idea, we ended up packing our bags, moving back to Utah, loading up a suburban, which we'd driven cross-country, and we started a one-year Odyssey that took us to every corner of the state, every park, restaurants in every town, living rooms. I mean, it was the quintessential grassroots campaign. And in some cases, one or two people would show up, in other cases hundreds would show up. And I had a theme that I didn't sort of veer at all from, and that was on economic development. And I had 10 points I wanted to...”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I mean, you think in political terms, you're approached by people who always want to pander, you know, and say, oh, you'd be good at this, you'd be good at that. But I never thought about it seriously. And then my daughters brought it up. And I responded by saying, I think that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. I'm not electable.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Yeah, today's trade rep. And things were going great. And my daughter's interesting story. My daughter sat me down after about two and a half years and they were in high school at the time. And they said, Dad, we'd kind of like our dad back. And I said, what do you mean by that? And they said, we were always gone. You're traveling. You're always overseas, doing trade deals, and you're not around for us. And I thought, you know, fair point. These are my kids and they're my responsibility. And I said, let's take the next weekend and go talk about possibilities in. And you can further enlighten me in terms of what you think your dad ought to be doing because I'm doing what I've always wanted to do and what I've been trained to do. And we took a weekend away. And my daughter shut me down, along with Murray Kay, and they said, we'd like to return to our home state. And we think you would make a great candidate for governor.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Become a leader, become a chief executive. And I was working in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative under George W. Bush, and we were going crazy negotiating agreements all over the place. I mean, a very productive period. I mean, Mike Fromans had a very productive period as trade representative.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “And was so taken by his leadership style, the goodness of his being and the way he treated other people, always with respect and the utmost dignity. Back when elections, you know, he'd never referred to his opponent by name, but basically there goes my opponent. There you go again kind of thing. Yes. And it also struck me that his model of executive governance was also something that kind of resonated with me. You know, don't waste time in the Senate or the House.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “They call it an advanced man back in those days organizing trips. You know exactly what the drill is. So I got to travel with President Reagan.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Well, it is. And they continue to deliberate as one of those bodies. I also worked for Ronald Reagan in his first term as an advanced man.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “To be not the place where I could utilize my talents between business and public service that I'd experienced in life so far. I'm sure you look at the Senate.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Up there, but we've done well. We started building the business piece by piece in the early 80s, a small operating business in Belpri, Ohio that we bought from Shell. And times were bad often, and you'd hit the wall, had no money at all to pay to cover payroll, and some years were pretty good. But the upshot being we added pieces over time and over about 30 different acquisitions was born Huntsman Corporation, which we have my brother's CEO of the business today. And we went public the year that I ran for governor in 2004. And so I brought along the business experience, the entrepreneurial experience, the executive experience as well. And the governorship intrigued me a lot more than being in the Senate, just being one of many and being part of a giant gab fest. It just seemed to me.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Well, it's hard to know how to measure that, but it all goes into a foundation because we didn't have anything to start with and our family philosophy is we're not going to believe it. Well, in any case, either.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Right and then head of the Asian Affairs Bureau and the Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative responsible for Asia, Africa, South Asia as well. So it did a lot of the trade negotiating once China, for example, joined the WTO.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Living in Taiwan Life changing in the sense that I had never seen my country from abroad before. I never really appreciated the enormous persuasive power that my country had in the world of international affairs, how we could move nations and regions of the world, and how we mattered to people in Taiwan. And it was right at the time when we were withdrawing our ambassador from Taiwan and recognizing the People's Republic of China long about 1979. So it was a very difficult time between the United States and Taiwan, and I'd get yelled at and cursed at when I'd walked down an alleyway, and I would wonder why. And I didn't really have any sense of the broader sort of geopolitical moves that were taking place at the time, but I promised myself on the ground there as a young missionary, I'm going to go back to the United States and learn everything I can about the environment in which all of this is playing out. And if I ever have an opportunity, I'd love to serve in a...”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “That's where I was first introduced to Chinese. And after two years, you become pretty fluent. You have to get by. Taiwan's a much different place today. But back then, it was a very underdeveloped country in order to get by, in order to eat. We just lived off the street for the most part, lived in different places around the island in apartments of various states of disarray. And you got to speak the language in order to survive.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “with some For two years living in third world conditions in Taiwan, unable to speak Chinese at the time and not knowing where I was or had to talk to anybody or get a meal. And that was a life-transforming experience as well for two years on the ground in the late 70s, early 80s”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Well, I look back and I say, at least I pursued my love and life music, but it left me a class short that I had to make up later as I was moving to University of Utah But my dad particularly always pushed the idea that you pursue your passion in life with great vigor, energy, and enthusiasm. And I really thought I could cut it as a musician and loved it and loved playing out with the band. And it was a fertile time for music innovation. And it wasn't to be. So I spent about a year of my time playing out with a band and trying to record an album. And it just didn't work. And so I decided to go back to civilian life.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I played in several different bands, but I came up as piano player originally a classical piano player. And as soon as I discovered jazz and improvisation, my life changed. And I never looked back. And I gave up classical music, which now my daughter really excels at. She's a classical piano. She's played at Carnegie Hall and studied the Manhattan School of Music. She doesn't recognize my type of music. But I then moved into jazz and played with the jazz band in high school. And then from there into rock and played in different rock bands and would gig out at the studio for an hour here, an hour there just as a job. And then was in a few bands. We'd play on the weekends and make a little bit of money playing for school dances or different events. And then we started a fairly serious band called Wizard, all original music. It was sort of the long firm progressive.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “That's right for another time. But the politics for me really started in high school when I ran for class president, something I never thought I'd do. And I ran for junior class president and won and thought I would continue that, ran for senior class president and lost and ran for another office and lost and linked up with a lovely young lady from the south who'd moved to Salt Lake City who'd run for an office too and lost and we console each other as losers and today Married and have been for 32 years. And that was how the great romance between my wife and I started at Highland High School.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Where the other film war was a much different film war, a much different film work. And the counterculture was in full blossom in those years, in the late 60s, early 70s in the Bay Area, where he was a schoolteacher. My other grandfather ran the hardware store in Palo Alto, later became mayor of Palo Alto. Really?”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Listen, it was the huntsman's saloon which burned down. In 1938, circumstances are still rather mysterious. But that was the watering hole for the political class and the religious class when they would travel from north to south and south to north in those days in the great state of Utah. So we planted ourselves in Salt Lake City right when I was starting high school. And my dad was just getting a business off the ground. He didn't have a business before that. We didn't have money. We were just regular people. And my dad's dad was a public school teacher. He retired as principal of Los Altos High School in California. And visiting him, I got my first real sense of the counterculture in the Bay Area. The Army trucks.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Now you get a sense of my heritage and the fine balance that they had to walk. So half my family were prodigious proselytizers in the LDS church, and the others were fairly successful saloon keepers in the huntsman saloon. It was probably made.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “This Saturday night massacre. Yeah. That's exactly right And so he served a couple of years there and we moved to Utah, which is where we had roots and where many of our relatives resided. And where I used to spend summers and time off in a little town called Fillmore, Population 2000, which is where my family's from. And there my family, my relatives were public school teachers and saloon keepers in this little town of Fillmore. It's still that small town today, although people don't think of Utah.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “It was a till of Vietnam. It was a tumultuous time. And I remember well the White House totally surrounded by protesters in the early 70s, the counterculture, the anti-Vietnam. etc he went to work at the Department of Health Education and Welfare for a man named Elliot Richardson.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “That's right. I had, in fact, politics started in high school for me. I grew up in California, born in the Navy. My dad was finishing his NROTC scholarship. And then he took a job in the Nixon administration. So we went from California back to Washington in 1970. And it was my first real exposure to politics of any kind.”

    2016-02-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 31 - Gov. Jon Huntsman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source