Former Utah governor and Ambassador-to-China under President Obama, Jon Huntsman, may not qualify to participate in the next GOP debate based on his recent poll numbers. (A threshold of one percent is demanded.) As reported here:

The CNN/ORC poll released Monday found Huntsman trailing unknown candidates in the race, including “none/no one,” a choice that received 4 percent support; “someone else” (3 percent) and “no opinion” (2 percent).

Just to reiterate, Jon Huntsman has fallen behind “none/no one,” “someone else,” and “no opinion.”

It was on August 12th, after the debate in Ames, Iowa, that it was observed in this space of Jon Huntsman: In the current political climate he represents antimatter.

A month later, after the Reagan Library debate, it was observed here that: It’s only a question of when [Jon Huntsman] goes poof and is entirely annihilated.

Forgive me for crowing just a little. When someone trails nothingness, zero, nada, the void, the vacuum, sweet FA and zilch in the latest poll, it does rather irresistibly underline the aptness of having said that he represents antimatter.

Clearly, this year, Jon Huntsman is an easy guy to kick around. Yet, finding exactly the right term with which to kick him still counts for something, surely.

More importantly, his situation underlines what was maintained earlier regarding the potential Chris Christie candidacy: This of all election cycles is one in which people are looking for a genuine conservative, and not an apologetic or reluctant one. Huntsman chose to portray himself in this race from the beginning as the alternative to all of those other unreasonable, provocative, uncouth candidates.

His reward is (in the immortal if banal words of Elvis Costello) less than zero.