The appointment of Utah Governor Jon Huntsman to be Ambassador to China is being hailed as a politically  savvy move by Barack Obama, removing a potentially significant rival in 2012.  That was my first reaction as well, but as I think about it some more, I'm not certain that's the case, at least not in the obvious sense.

If Huntsman were at all serious about running for President in 2012, I'm not sure why he'd accept.  Ambassador to China is an important post, but it isn't exactly Secretary of State, and Huntsman has no party loyalty duty to accept it.  What I would read into this is that Huntsman was never particularly serious about running for President in the first place.  The politically savvy move was the Huntsman boomlet started by Plouffe.

As for Al Giordano's thesis that the potential Romney defeat in the 2012 GOP primary threatens to alienate Mormon voters from the GOP, I suppose it is possible, but the first Romney defeat didn't exactly cause Mormon voters to abandon the GOP.