Jon Huntsman and Roy Moore Base 2012 Campaigns in Florida

Politico reported on Wednesday that, if he enters the 2012 Republican presidential primary, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman will be setting up base in Orlando.

Ben Smith weighed in on the matter, maintaining that Huntsman was looking to head off former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts:

Planting a flag like that in Florida will inevitably bring comparisons (first!) to Rudy Giuliani's late strategy, which was more an adjustment to early state weakness than a grand plan, and which didn't work. Whatever groundwork one can lay thinly across a huge place like Florida is in danger of being washed away by the wave coming out of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

But Huntsman's stand there (and he's also playing aggressively in New Hampshire and South Carolina) seems to anticipate the same unusual campaign that Romney is planning for, one that's more about weakness than strength, in which Romney limps out of the early states wounded but breathing, and facing a rival who simply can't keep up with his spending through the long march of the first half of 2008. Huntsman may also be able to spend a lot, if not Romney money, and seems also bracing for a long march.

Huntsman is not the only out-of-state presidential candidate who has set up operations in Florida. Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama, best known for his defense of the Ten Commandments memorial, has set up his campaign team in Pensacola.