Huntsman in New Hampshire emphasizes primary over "hokey" straw polls

HENNIKER, N.H. -- Jon Huntsman is marketing himself as the "civil" candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, but he's gotten pretty good at making sideswipes at the rivals currently trumping him in the polls. He managed to get in a few at his first New Hampshire town hall Tuesday night, while reminding voters in the Granite State of the amount of chips he's placed on their first-in-the-nation primary.

Around 150 people showed up to hear the former Utah governor at New England College near Concord, the state capital. Asked by one voter, a Democrat who said she thinks "it would be great" to have a moderate Republican like Huntsman in the White House, how he plans to best the rest of GOP field, Huntsman answered simply: "New Hampshire."

The state's primary "isn't a hokey straw poll," Huntsman continued. "You have to earn [the votes]."

It's hard not to interpret that as a diss of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the Republican frontrunner, who has announced he intends to compete in Florida's Presidency 5 straw poll later this month, and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who has been making much of her victory last month in Iowa's straw poll. Huntsman recently announced he was pulling resources out of Florida in favor of New Hampshire, and bypassing the Presidency 5 straw poll.

Huntsman's distant kinsman, Mitt Romney, who also is counting on a New Hampshire victory to jump-start his drive for the GOP presidential nomination, also came in for a not-so-subtle shot.

"I'm proudly running on my record - I'm not running away from my record," Huntsman said. Romney has been engaged in some tricky political backpedaling on the health care plan that he proposed as governor of Massachusetts.

President Obama has cited it as the blueprint for the federal health care law that he enacted and that every GOP presidential candidate - including Romney - is now vowing to repeal.

Before his New Hampshire audience, Huntsman emphasized his foreign policy experience. Most recently, Obama's ambassador to China, Huntsman argued that he brings a unique perspective to an increasingly powerful country that many politicians love to bash.

"I like to say you can either make China the fear factor argument - and I can make the fear factor argument as well as anybody," Huntsman said. "But instead of the fear factor, which is an easy argument to make, we need to make the opportunity factor as well."

In New Hampshire, a state that allows crossover voting in primary elections, Huntsman is presenting himself as the least partisan candidate in the field.

"We cannot afford to be at the extreme ends of politics yelling and screaming at each other," he said.