BLITZER: The Republican presidential contenders spanning out in a campaign trail with polls showing the race certainly up for grabs. Ron Paul is in the nation's capital of Washington D.C. Herman Cain is in Florida. Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Newt Gingrich, they are in Iowa just weeks ahead of that state's critical caucuses. Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman are both in New Hampshire. They're gearing up for the first of the nation primary also only weeks away.

Here's a controversial comment that Jon Huntsman had to say about New Hampshire. Listen to this.

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JON HUNTSMAN, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't care what the rest of the country thinks or feels. That's not important. I do care about what the people of New Hampshire feel because this is important.

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BLITZER: Jon Huntsman is joining us now. He's the former U.S. ambassador to China, the former governor of Utah. Getting a little grief, a little buzz on that comment. Governor, you don't care what the rest of the country feels? Explain.

HUNTSMAN: Of course I do. Let' put it a little more artfully for you, Wolf. I don't care much about what the polls have to say about our performance anywhere else other than here in New Hampshire. This is a critically important state for us. We've got weeks to go before the good folks of New Hampshire turn out on January 10th. They're rallying around in these last few weeks somebody with a message, somebody who's got a track r record, somebody who exuded trust, all of which we desperately need in our next leader.

And I like our chances here. We just celebrated last night Wolf our 100th public event in New Hampshire. Tonight we're doing 101. And with each event, the crowds get larger. They get more enthusiastic. And I feel a level of connection here that makes me feel viscerally that we're going to do very, very good in New Hampshire.

BLITZER: The polls in New Hampshire, including a Bloomberg poll, showed Mitt Romney basically owns the state at least as of right now. He's at 40 percent in this new poll. He almost lives in New Hampshire as the governor of neighboring Massachusetts. Can you beat Romney in New Hampshire?

HUNTSMAN: Well, there have been a whole lot of other tenuous front- runners here, and the people sometimes have other ideas in mind. They don't like to be told more who to vote here. They want the candidate to earn it. They want to know your heart and soul. They want to know what you're all about in terms of what you've done, where you come from, and your vision for a better tomorrow.

And you've got to work it. There's no way around it, Wolf. You've got to be on the ground here working it. And gladly we've got a little bit on the air cover now on the air, so you combine this shoe leather, the sweat equity that we're putting in on the ground with a little bit of air cover.

And I like our chances as we move forward. People will begin to coalesce around the candidates probably late December and early January. And then they have to ask themselves a very important question as they stare down that ballot box. That's when the theatrics and the show business aspects of the pre-primary season are all behind. They have to look at the ballot box and ask the question, who can actually do the job of the president of the United States of America? Who actually has a track record, the requisite experience, the ability to bring people together during this time of need, and a vision for America's future? And given all of that, I kind of -- I like our position.

BLITZER: What does it say to you that Gingrich was paid between $1.6 million and $1.8 million in recent years to advise the troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac?

HUNTSMAN: Listen, it says that you all are out doing your work and you have discovered some numbers that nobody can explain but Newt Gingrich. And every time we have these issues pop up, it takes a little bit of the bandwidth away from our ability to actually talk about the issues that really matter like --

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HUNTSMAN: Pardon me?

BLITZER: Does that trouble you at all?

HUNTSMAN: Well, listen, I don't know the truth behind it, and I wouldn't want to render a judgment at this point in the campaign. There are always allegations floated, and it's up to Speaker Gingrich to address them.

He's a good man. I have a lot of respect for him. And I have no doubt he'll be able to offer an explanation to the American people on it.

BLITZER: The other day, in Milwaukee, Herman Cain struggled with a relatively simple question about Libya. Let me play just a tiny snippet of what happened.

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HERMAN CAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason. No, that's a different one. I've got to go back and see -- I've got all this stuff twirling around in my head.

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BLITZER: A disqualifier, as far as you're concerned? What do you think?

HUNTSMAN: We'll let the people decide. I mean, aside from giving the late-night humor writers a whole lot of raw material with which to work, ultimately the people are going to decide, and they're going to take into account what all of the candidates have to offer. And in the end, I think they're going to say, I like somebody with real business experience, someone who's governed a state where job creation was number one, someone who's actually overseas before, as I have four times, who's been an ambassador three times. Those are three elements that I think are going to weigh very heavily in the minds of voters when they go to vote. And all of this is part of the pre-season effort. It allows folks to get a full measure of who the candidates are, what their backgrounds are, how well prepared they are to deal with the issues and what their vision consists of, most of all, to bring this country together during an unprecedented time of need.

We can't forget the big picture here, Wolf, and that is, 14 million to 15 million of our citizens are without work, without the dignity of employment, with millions more who are so dispirited, they have just given up trying. We're now up to $15 trillion in debt. These are unprecedented problems, and we need real leadership.

BLITZER: All right.

And we're almost out of time, but put your hat on as an expert on China. You speak Chinese. You're a former U.S. ambassador to China.

The president announcing today the U.S. is about to establish a real military presence, a bunch of U.S. Marines, several thousand, in Australia, perhaps as a signal to the Chinese. What do you think about this?

HUNTSMAN: Well, I think it's the right move. Afghanistan is not our long-term interest. Iraq is not our long-term interest.

Our long-term interest is the Asian-Pacific region. It's three- quarters of our trade flow. It's where the emerging militaries are going to be.

It's where the action will be for the United States from a national security standpoint. We need to take it seriously, and there are several more potential partnerships and alliances in the Asia-Pacific region that we ought to be cultivating as well that will put us in the position we need to be in as a counterweight against Chinese growth and military buildup.

BLITZER: Governor Huntsman, thanks for joining us. Good luck.

HUNTSMAN: Thanks, Wolf.