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Washington • Jon Huntsman's presidential campaign pushed back Thursday against an ex-campaign staffer who claims the former Utah governor's White House bid is in turmoil and suffers from systemic problems.
David Fischer, who was squeezed out of the campaign late last month, opened up to the news outlet Politico with a scorching narrative about a campaign "rife with dysfunction and internal squabbles."
Fischer, who served alongside Huntsman as a young aide in the Reagan White House and also worked for Huntsman's family petrochemical company, blamed the campaign's troubles on John Weaver, Huntsman's chief strategist.
In a story published in Thursday's Politico, Fischer said Huntsman's father, Jon Sr., and wife, Mary Kaye, have raised concerns about the bid so far, and the former operations manager also asserted that Huntsman opened a line of credit to help fund his bid but won't fork over any more of his personal fortune.
"He's done," Fischer told Politico.
The campaign says that's not true, just as most of what Fischer is saying after being jettisoned from the organization.
"Governor Huntsman and his family have the utmost confidence that we can win and have confidence in the staff and volunteers," said Jeff Wright, a Utahn serving as Huntsman's national fundraising chairman.
Wright added that on the finance side, the campaign is hitting its goals and has had no problem raising funds.
Fischer shared with Politico personal emails he had sent and received from the former governor and noted high tensions and screaming matches at Huntsman headquarters and fundraising concerns.
Fischer first sent a note to Huntsman resigning from the campaign "to stop this madness and pettiness," according to the news outlet.
Huntsman responded, Politico said, with an email that began, "I love you like a brother."
"We will reconnect when the obvious issues become less pronounced in our daily lives and do a bit of restructuring which I'm now deeply involved with," the email reportedly said. "My gratitude for your friendship, support and early advice (some of which will be apparent in the management moves). We can win this thing."
Fischer, whose father reportedly died Thursday morning, could not be reached for comment. Weaver did not return calls seeking comment.
Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller told The Tribune that the candidate is "very confident" in his campaign's leadership.
"The campaign is on a path to victory with trusted advisers, the right message, and most importantly the most-prepared and most-accomplished candidate in the field," Miller said. "Governor Huntsman is concerned about the lack of jobs and debt crisis facing this nation. He's focused on solving this nation's problems, not inside-the-beltway banter."
Whether the story of campaign chaos remains just insider banter or becomes the first crack in the dam remains to be seen, but political observers cautioned not to write Huntsman off.
Mark McKinnon, a Republican political adviser who worked for President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain's White House runs, says dustups like this come with the turf and are "part of the presidential hazing process."
"All presidential campaigns have drama," McKinnon told The Tribune. "The real question is to see how Huntsman handles the challenge."
Politico reported in Thursday's edition that Fischer contacted the news outlet to talk initially as a "campaign insider" but went on the record slamming Weaver and sharing personal emails from the candidate when Fischer read a story in Real Clear Politics about him being squeezed out.
That story said Fischer was asked to leave after complaining of fellow staffers with tattoos, who smoked or were gay. Fischer denied that.
"It's not an ego [thing]," Fischer told Politico about why he was going public. "In fact, a lot of it is if the story gets told, I want the story to be, because Weaver's history in past campaigns is when they don't work out, for whatever reason, he attacks the candidate. And in this case, I am hoping that people at least focus on, well, what went wrong here? The strategy went wrong. The strategy didn't work. At least to this day it hasn't worked."
Huntsman has already replaced his campaign manager and promised a more aggressive tone after his first month officially in the race left him still hovering near 1 percent in polls.