The Hill News

Potential Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman said Tuesday that he suspects politics might have played a role in President Obama's decision to choose him as ambassador to China.

Huntsman acknowledged what many political observers had suggested when Obama tapped him as ambassador: that Obama brought the former governor of Utah inside the administration to forestall a tough political challenge in 2012.

{mosads}"Was there politics to it? Perhaps; I'll let historians sort it out," Huntsman said in an interview Tuesday on the Mark Larson show.

Huntsman's service under Obama has conventionally been seen as a big obstacle to his chances of winning the Republican nomination. But Republicans on Capitol Hill have largely given Huntsman a pass, and the former ambassador has attributed his decision to serve to a sense of duty. Huntsman said last Friday that he'd serve again, if given a chance to revisit the decision. 

But Obama an! d his aides have already sought to use Huntsman's service against him, facetiously thanking him for his service with an eye toward the conservatives who might hold that against him.

"There may be some of that," Huntsman acknowledged of the politics behind Obama's decision to name him as ambassador. "The other reality is that there aren't a whole lot of people in the country who can actually pass Senate confirmation when it comes to filling a very sensitive slot like the post over in China."

In the meanwhile, Huntsman's sought to stress his conservative credentials. He talked up his opposition to abortion rights in the radio interview and said that he doesn't support same-sex marriage, though he might have trouble winning over some social conservatives with his support for civil unions for gay and lesbian couples.