Jon Huntsman has been mentioned as a rising star in the Republican firmament, a man with true conservative credentials but who also is softer than most Republicans on social issues. There had been talk in various places that Huntsman would make a decent candidate for President in 2012, but that was then. Jon Huntsman is accepting the job of Ambassador to China from Barack Obama today, and the Republicans will likely excommunicate him now. Here’s a preview of today’s announcement, from the Salt Lake Tribune, but it is more interesting to look to the LA Times, where the political implications are spelled out, oh so inadequately, by Andrew Malcolm:

Obama’s public schedule is clear for Saturday. Huntsman is said to be in Washington. And an unexpected bipartisan.announcement like this would make a helpful positive splash in Sunday newspapers and on the TV talk shows. (Unless Huntsman eventually pulls an unlikely Judd Gregg, as happened with a previous bipartisan appointment.)

Not that political considerations would ever figure into any White House personnel decisions. Hyde Park forfend!

But if suspicions about Huntsman’s GOP presidential ambitions for 2012 are accurate, having the Republican as a bipartisan member of the Obama team on the far side of the planet just might make it more difficult for Huntsman to criticize the Democrat someday. Living in Beijing certainly makes it more difficult to hop over to Iowa for a quick weekend of Lincoln Day chicken dinners.

Heading the American diplomatic delegation in Beijing did give Bush I valuable foreign policy experience and exposure that eventually led to his selection as VP on Ronald Reagan’s ticket.

Beyond Malcolm’s pot shot at the Obama Administration, his keen political analysis tells us that Huntsman is putting himself in a position where a 2012 run for the Republican nomination is not feasible, but that foreign service worked int he past for a Republican. The elephant in the room that Malcolm is blind to is that the Republicans will now firmly boot Jon Huntsman from the party. Michelle Malkin seems to have done so already, and GOP 12 speculates that Huntsman is going to turn traitor and joint he Democratic Party. It is highly likely that the nutjobs at Redstate and FreeRepublic will kick Jon Hunstman to the curb in a few hours.

But wait, there’s a little moment of sanity from a conservative. Over at Generation Patriot there is some lament over Jon Huntsman accepting the Obama Administration position, as the author calls it the “worst decision of his [Huntsman's] career, but the guy doesn’t completely throw Hunstman under the bus. Sure, this is exile, but I’m thinking the Republicans didn’t have much chance in 2012 anyway, and that Huntsman in particular has little chance to get the Pres. nomination because Republicans haven’t yet been shocked enough electorally to understand that they’ve got to give up the extremist social positions. Huntsman would lose because the extremist base, the ones who dominate Republican primaries, will go for Huckabee or Palin or anyone who wears their extremist social values pinned to their lapels. I get the sense that Jon Huntsman couldn’t stomach doing that.

The big question is how being appointed Ambassador to China helps any ambitions Jon Huntsman might have. Certainly one interpretation could be that Jon Huntsman has no ambitions for the Presidency, and that he sees the China job as interesting. He’s got a daughter adopted from China and speaks fluent Mandarin, so that just isn’t far-fetched. But how does this set Huntsman up for 2016, assuming Barack Obama wins in 2012? Well, if the Republicans choose a social extremist in 2012, as it seems they may do, then the Republican Party will sink further into irrelevancy. Were I a Huntsman supporter I would counsel resigning from the Ambassadorship sometime in 2013 or so and coming home to save the Republican Party, complete with speeches about how true conservative values include a “live and let live” libertarian component. Sure, this would take a top-notch political team to pull off, but I could envision a reawakened Republican Party behind such a banner, though not until at least 2016.

For now I’ll go with the bitter and accurate voice at Reconstitution 2.0, who concludes that Jon Huntsman leaving the country opens the door even wider for Rush Limbaugh to take over the diseased soul of the Republican Party and run the organization into the ground. The only question here is when is the GOP going to hit bottom.