Abby Huntsman Livingston: Ron Paul Supporters' Jon Huntsman Attack Ad Is 'Vile' (VIDEO)

Abby Huntsman Livingston, daughter of GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, appeared on Fox News Friday to push back against a controversial video, reportedly released by Ron Paul supporters in New Hampshire, that scrutinized her father's ties to China and the family's two adopted children.

"I think it's unfortunate that the political conversation has become this vile," she said. "I think this video goes a bit far. My two little sisters are the love of my dad's life. They came from very unfortunate circumstances, and we feel blessed every day to have them in our lives. So, they're the ones I think about in a video like this."

Abby Huntsman Livingston continued, saying "the Ron Paul supporters don't realize that these actions really affect the Ron Paul campaign."

The video, posted to YouTube by a group claiming to be "New Hampshire Liberty 4 Paul," attempts to draw a sinister connection between Jon Huntsman's fluency in Mandarin -- he was a former U.S. ambassador to China -- and adopted children to suggest that he may be some sort of Manchurian Candidate. It closes with an illustration of Huntsman as Chairman Mao.

The Paul campaign quickly disavowed the video after it surfaced on Friday.

"The video is disgusting. Whoever put it up should remove it immediately," Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said to CNN. The campaign later posted a more lengthy response trying to distance itself from the spot.

Huntsman, responded to the video himself on Friday, calling it stupid and explaining his family background.

"I saw just parts of it yesterday," he said. "First of all, it is just stupid. Second of all, yeah, I lived overseas four times ... I speak Chinese, of course I do. If someone wants to poke fun of me for speaking Chinese, that's OK. The thing I object to is bringing forward pictures and videos of my adopted daughters and suggesting that there is some sinister motive there. I have a daughter from China who was abandoned at two months of age and left in a vegetable market, picked up by the police and sent to an orphanage."

"I have a second daughter who was born in India in a very rural village ... and left for dead the day she was born," he added. "And luckily she was picked up before the animals got her, and she was sent to an orphanage for her safety, was raised and now she is in my family. So I have two little girls who are a daily reminder that there are a lot of kids in this world who don't have the breaks that you do and face a very uncertain future ... and now these two girls are on the presidential campaign trail. I say, how cool is that?"

Video of the interview above, via Fox News

Watch the original spot:

Comments

[dimitrius]

04:22 PM on 01/15/2012

So, because some person, and we DON'T REALLY KNOW truly who it is, made this video. We somehow assume this to be from a Paul supporter? Why? No one knows who it was, the video was quickly deleted, and no one has come forward. One must understand that this was apparently private family footage. Would some random Paul supporter have access to that kind of information?

This is all very fishy, and politics is a VERY DIRTY game. For all we know it could have been an attempt to lower the publicity rating of Paul with a self-inflicted wound to boost Huntsman?

[Shari McRae]

03:54 PM on 01/13/2012

Don't you have anything more important to report on? I think a 1 hour in-depth interview with Ron Paul on any of his most controversial positions would be a good start if you were interested in reporting news and information rather than boosting ratings tabloid-style. Of course you would need to find someone else to supply you with the questions since most FOX reporters seem to have lost the ability to identify intelligent and relevant questions.

[KeithinVa]

08:52 AM on 01/10/2012

I think this likely is an anti-Paul plant. I agree with Paul's stand to end the War on Drugs and dial back our foreign interventions, but Paul has trafficked in some racism and conspiracy theories in the past, including conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombings. So I think somebody felt justified in showing Ron Paul just what a real conspiracy looks like.

[lookiethataway]

02:01 AM on 01/10/2012

Careful, GOP, your desperation to sideline Ron Paul is showing. Anyone who knows how YouTube works knows this is a phoney. Like, all young people.

[whoizit]

06:26 PM on 01/09/2012

On the replies to that vid someone said 'these are family videos!!!' somewhere else I read that the videos could only come from the family so it had to be Huntsman's daughters!!!! Shame they didn't check youtube for this VOA News report posted 22nd May 2009 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=kExJf4254zU

[EvilHuntsman]

12:43 AM on 01/09/2012

Of course this screenname is just a silly handle. I'm sending this silly and kinda biting parody of a conspracy theory. I emphasize that it's a parody.

Begin silly parody:

From the conspiracy:

As we can see, news of our great conspiracy to slime Ron Paul has made my share price on Intrade go way up! My chances of coming in 2nd in new Hampshire, according to Intrade, has quadrupled today, from $0.75 to $3.00 as of 9:12 PM.

You've successfully slimed Ron Paul by uncritically attributing a racist ad to his supporters! Then when Politico floated that story that a consulting group working for Paul found evidence that our campaign put up the ad, we got to dismiss Paull supporters as paranoid.

In fact, we keep snidely saying Paul's own supporters are his worst enemy, so we can unfairly shame Paul supporters: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/ron-paul-supporters-and-that-awful-huntsman-attack-ad/2012/01/06/gIQAPfswfP_blog.html

Tomorrow, January 9, 2012, we'll release fake evidence that the Twitter accounts of the video actually came from Paul supporters, this will reinforce the meme that you established, and let the family be "publically smeared" once again by the "crazy Paul supporters". Remember, we established with Piers Morgan last week that Paul can't control his own followers, right Piers?:)

HuffPo- We gotta humiliate Paul's youthful, tolerant supporters by making Paul look totally uncool. Keep up the good work

End silly parody

[SupportOurTroops12]

10:25 AM on 01/08/2012

This is truly a ridiculous debate, to say the very least. There is "apparently" no real proof of anything (and plenty of reasonable doubt everywhere), but I will say this: PEOPLE DO STUPID THINGS. And the person who put this video up is clearly pretty stupid and misguided in his/her/their own minds. So are a lot of Christians who have done horrible things in the name of Christ, Whites who have done horrible things in the name of Whites, and the list goes on and on and on until every single group and ideology has been named. I guess all those religions and groups are evil and racist because of what some of their members have chosen to do, by your logic. This is ridiculous, and anyone who chooses to use that argument should start using their own noggins before doing so--it only makes you sound dumb (and desperately biased), like the HuffPost does here. It's one thing to speculate, and it's a completely different thing to downright accuse "Ron Paul Supporters" of supporting racism.
So, don't act surprised that Ron Paul supporters are coming on here to defend themselves--anyone would do the same when falsely accused of such filth. If you want to lump them all into one group, then expect to hear from the group, MSM...and expect thinking (non-biased) people everywhere to wonder about the objectivity of your reporting. End of story.

[Truthmastr]

06:36 AM on 01/08/2012

It's horrible that someone would point out Huntsman who is running for President of the U.S., really has his heart in China. Then to prove it,he starts speaking Chinese in ABC's Debate. OOPS !!

[Brad Parsons]

12:55 AM on 01/08/2012

Consulting firm analysis: Huntsman campaign posted the "Manchurian Candidate" video http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/01/paul-analysis-floats-huntsman-video-link-spokesman-109958.html The Report: http://images.politico.com/global/2012/01/cando_com_analysis.html

[synergie]

12:02 AM on 01/09/2012

Did you perhaps read the text?

Even the Paul supporters don't buy that tripe.

http://www.dailypaul.com/201111/urgent-do-not-unleash-blowback-to-the-huntsman-campaign-on-this-you-have-no-clear-evidence

The response from the Paul campaign and the supporters is every bit as vile as the video itself.

[KeithinVa]

06:55 PM on 01/07/2012

My name is HuffPost4AOL and I apologize to Ron Paul for spreading this racist filth and ascribing it to his supporters.

[AOL SUX]

07:25 PM on 01/07/2012

Hey dude! Give me a puff off that reefer!

[KeithinVa]

06:53 PM on 01/07/2012

My name is Huntsman4Prez and I apologize to Ron Paul for spreading this filth and making baseless accusations.

[fatback65]

05:52 PM on 01/07/2012

I never saw or heard what Paul said concerning this recist video. Did he denounce it in the starkest terms? I hope so.

[madHenry]

06:19 PM on 01/07/2012

He "disavowed" it.

[synergie]

12:05 AM on 01/09/2012

He denounced it, and then his campaign "hired" some firm to basically smear Huntsman and his daughters (the older ones) by accusing them of making the video.

The video was clearly not from the campaign, but the response from the campaign itself and the supporters has been sufficiently nasty enough to reflect extremely poorly on the supporters and the campaign itself.

[fatback65]

05:48 PM on 01/07/2012

Wow. Any cred Huntsman may have had with me as a sane republican, he just lost it after seeing him nominate Palin for VP.

[CynAnne]

05:38 PM on 01/07/2012

Since we still don't have any definitive proof that the video came from Huntsman's camp, and since Dr. Paul does have a questionable (to say the least) way of 'thinking' when it comes to the subject of equal rights, let us just paraphrase his fellow T-Publican't, Herb Cain: "If you have a documented history of publishing newsletters rife with race-baiting language, and people keep questioning you about them...blame yourself!"

[Gerald Owen]

04:43 AM on 01/08/2012

How does Ron Paul have a "questionable (to say the least) way of 'thinking' when it comes to the subject of equal rights?"

Oh, we're quoting Herman Cain now to prove points? Next we'll be quoting his mistresses.

[CynAnne]

08:38 PM on 01/08/2012

@Gerald: There's quite a bit to choose from, regarding R.P.s, shall we say, 'unique' way of discussing equal rights and minorities....here are some real 'winners', taken from those 'newsletters': http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/10-shocking-quotes-from-ron-pauls-newsletters.php ...and, as for Cain & Co., don't blame us because your party has devolved into a veritable 'geek show' of wingnuttery, with one loonier than the last.

[CynAnne]

04:17 PM on 01/11/2012

@Ka0s: Then WHY did Paul dance around the subject and change his answers? There's more to that then what Paul's letting on...'where there's smoke, there's fire'...

[scooter1]

05:14 PM on 01/07/2012

Racist conservatives. What a surprise.

[SupportOurTroops12]

12:02 PM on 01/08/2012

Judgmental collectivist labeling mindsets. What a surprise.

[Ka0s]

03:21 AM on 01/11/2012

Here is a little video you might want to watch if you think Dr. Paul is a racist..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rv0Z5SNrF4

In case you decide not to watch it here is a synopsis: It is an older black man telling a story from 1973. His white wife was in the hospital giving birth to their child. Everyone looked down on them because they were an interracial couple. They even called police saying he was harassing her. Dr. Paul found out what was happening, went there and delivered the child which was stillborn. Dr. Paul did not charge the man or his wife, because he is a compassionate man who cares nothing about the color of your skin or money.

No special rights - only equal rights for everyone!