Today is the last day. Today is the last day Jon Huntsman Jr. could do anything else in the world. Today is the last day he could return to the family business (he's served as an executive at the multibillion-dollar Huntsman Corporation started by his father) or decide instead to run for a smaller office (he was twice elected governor of Utah) or teach international relations at Penn (he was most recently the U.S. ambassador to China) or camp himself on the couch and grow old with his wife, Mary Kaye, and their seven children. These are the last few minutes for him to change his mind. He could still leave this restaurant in a posh Boston hotel, where he sits tucked away at a table overlooking the harbor, eating lunch with an influential Republican donor, and board any one of a thousand different planes. Or he could get up from his table, climb into the SUV that's idling outside, and drive up to the seven-seat charter that's already waiting for him at Logan Airport, for a flight scheduled to arrive later this afternoon in Lebanon, New Hampshire. If he doesn't change his mind in these next few minutes, he might still begin his campaign to become the next president of the United States at Jesse's Steaks, Seafood, and Tavern somewhere between tiny Lebanon and tiny Hanover, by taking a breath, walking across the parking lot and past the salad bar, and asking for the first of a hundred million votes.

Or he could do anything else in the world.

Huntsman finishes his lunch, shakes hands with the smiling donor, and makes his way to the lobby. He's built like a long-distance runner. He's wearing a dark suit, a white shirt, a blue tie. His graying hair is neatly parted. He looks rich, which he is. Although he could run on family money, he's learned from the likes of Meg Whitman that self-financing campaigns are losing campaigns. If you can't lure donors, you can't lure voters. So he's feeling pretty good about his lunch. Lanny Wiles, the veteran advance man — he oversaw...