Former Utah governor and current Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has lately begun distancing himself from his leading GOP rivals but presenting himself as more electable that they because, basically, he’s willing to accept what scientific evidence says about nature and what basic economics says about the consequences of a U.S. debt default.

As Huntsman said Sunday on ABC’s This Week,

The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party – the anti-science party, we have a huge problem. We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012. When we take a position that isn’t willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science – Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man’s contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position.

The Republican Party has to remember that we’re drawing from traditions that go back as far as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, President Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Bush. And we’ve got a lot of traditions to draw upon. But I can’t remember a time in our history where we actually were willing to shun science and become a – a party that – that was antithetical to science. I’m not sure that’s good for our future and it’s not a winning formula.

Later, asked if he’d trust Michele Bachmann with the U.S. economy, Huntsman said, “Well, I wouldn’t necessarily trust any of my opponents right now, who were on a recent debate stage with me, when every single one of them would have allowed this country to default.”

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