NEW YORK--Ten days after dropping out of the GOP race, erstwhile candidate and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman has accepted his next job: chairman of the Salt Lake City-based Huntsman Cancer Foundation.

The foundation announced this morning Huntsman will succeed his father Jon M. Huntsman, who will serve as chairman emeritus.

Huntsman Sr. who founded the namesake organization said his son takes the position "with a wealth of leadership experience."

On the campaign trail, Huntsman often touted his experience "running a cancer institute" when answering questions from voters about his experience. He also regularly invoked the idea of cancer in his stump speeches.

"We have a cancer metastasizing in this country," Huntsman said hundreds of times across New Hampshire. "It's called debt."

"His unparalleled international reputation and experience will greatly enhance the life-saving work in which the Foundation is engaged," his father noted in a statement. "We join together with the entire Huntsman Cancer Institute team of more than 1,300 full-time faculty and staff in welcoming Jon to this new position."

This comes after the younger Huntsman told a voter at a GOP breakfast on Charleston's Daniel Island that his father "is not well." The elder Huntsman -- who was expected to bankroll his son's presidential bid via Our Destiny PAC -- attended his son's primary night celebration in New Hampshire and his announcement to leave the race in South Carolina.

Huntsman Jr., who dropped out on January 16, endorsed Mitt Romney after struggling to gain traction in the polls. He finished a distant third place in the New Hampshire primary after centering his entire campaign efforts in the Granite State. Unlike Romney's other major surrogates including former GOP rival Tim Pawlenty however, Huntsman is not expected to play a major role in Romney's national efforts, after recording a targeted auto-dial message to moderate voters in South Carolina shortly after dropping out.

Huntsman's new role is perhaps one of several he may assume in the coming months. Many have speculated what the future holds for the well-credentialed Huntsman, who has served in three Republican administrations and most recently as President Obama's top envoy to China.

This is also a return to the foundation for Huntsman, who served as an executive when the foundation was first launched by his father in 1995.

According to a release from the organization, the Huntsman Cancer Foundation is a cancer research center that provides patient care, education and outreach for ways to prevent and treat cancer, and "the only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center in the entire Intermountain West."

EXETER NH--Ending his New Hampshire marathon exactly where he first began it, Jon Huntsman delivered his closing argument to his biggest ever crowd in the Granite State, hoping that his weekend surge will be enough to propel him to South Carolina.

“Something is happening out there,” Huntsman said, basking in deafening cheers at the quintessentially charming Exeter Town Hall. “I have no idea what it is going to mean tomorrow night, but I do know this:  we’re going to surprise a whole lot of people in this country.”

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Jon Huntsman speaks to voters during a 'Restoring Trust Rally' in Exeter, New Hampshire.

Huntsman launched his Granite State strategy on June 21 in the same town hall. Later, New Hampshire would become the singular focus of shoe-string strategy that was once a three-state approach. His sudden surge over the past several days has been a welcome change for a candidate who usually spoke to crowds of a few dozen until very recently.

Huntsman also hammered home a new mantra: “Country First.” The phrase
-- which was first used in John McCain's 2008 campaign -- is a ninth hour addition to his stump speech, after front-runner Mitt Romney questioned Huntsman's decision to serve as US ambassador to China under Democratic incumbent Barack Obama in two debates last weekend.
The Huntsman campaign began airing an television advertisement slamming Romney's position and generated new lawn signs emblazoned with the tagline to drive the point home in the final hours before New Hampshire votes.

“Our movement is here to put our country first. We’re tired of people putting politics first,” Huntsman said of Romney as his Exeter crowd roared.

The sizeable rally, which was utterly unfathomable just one week ago, featured an energetic Huntsman who spent the day crisscrossing the state drawing a contrast between himself and Mitt Romney. Clad in a leather bomber jacket, Huntsman brought up Romney's debate comments repeatedly.

"It has become abundantly clear over the last couple of days what differentiates Gov. Romney and me," Huntsman told reporters in Concord today. "I will always put my country first. It seems that Gov. Romney believes in putting politics first. Gov. Romney enjoys firing people.
I enjoy creating jobs."

Huntsman was referring to a comment on health care by Romney earlier in the day, during which Romney answered a question on health care.

"I like being able to fire people who provide services to me," Romney said this morning. "If someone doesn't give me the good service I need, I want to say I am going to get somebody else to provide that service to me."

Huntsman spent most of his final full day on the New Hampshire trail kissing babies, dropping by diners and bakeries, and shaking hands with any voter who would give him their attention. Starting from the northern reaches of the state and slowly working his way south, Huntsman told voters he wanted to "twist your arm and earn your vote."

"We're looking for a little help," a hopeful Huntsman told voters in Nashua. "We need help in getting out the vote tomorrow. We've worked very, very hard...no one has worked this state like we have."

By evening, a cloudy moment momentarily dampened the otherwise ebuillient mood.

Huntsman's application to appear in the Arizona primary ballot was rejected because of a missing notarized signature today, according to the Arizona Secretary of State's Office. This comes after the former Utah governor missed ballot requirements in Virginia and Illinois. The Huntsman campaign vowed that it did complete the application and plans to litigate to put his name on the ballot.

But Huntsman himself remained focused on leveraging his weekend surge into a performance worthy of the many days he has spent in the Granite State.

"Are we ready to rock and roll tomorrow?" Huntsman bellowed in Exeter.
"We are ready to rock and roll!"

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- With just five days to go until the New Hampshire primary, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman's most threatening opponent may not be Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum, but Father Time.

"We've got the tyranny of the clock moving against us now. And we're moving as quickly as we can," he said in Portsmouth today, citing his late entry into the race this summer.

Huntsman, who finished serving as Barack Obama's ambassador to China in May, has campaigned aggressively in New Hampshire and skipped Iowa over the past six months. However, with less than a week to go, he remains stuck in high single digits in state polls.

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With time running out, Huntsman admits he needs a "market moving event" to keep his candidacy alive. Consequently, he has ratcheted up his attacks on front-runner Romney, after criticizing the former Massachusetts governor as an "establishment" and "status quo" candidate for the last week.

"The people of New Hampshire will not be told for whom to vote," Huntsman told an audience of about 300 tonight in Newport. "They want people to earn their vote, as opposed to sitting down in South Carolina, so certain of victory."

Huntsman was referring to Romney's Thursday trip to South Carolina, where he will campaign before returning to New Hampshire Friday afternoon.

The former ambassador to China added that Romney is resting on his laurels as he enjoys a wide lead in New Hampshire polls. By spending time outside of the first-in-the-nation state, Huntsman said, "That would pretty much suggest that you feel you've got it wrapped up and that would be taking the voters for granted."

Meanwhile, Huntsman is searching for every last vote he can find in a style that resembles Rick Santorum's town-by-town Iowa campaign.

 "I need your vote," he routinely bellows into the microphone at town hall meetings.

Huntsman hopes his handshake-by-handshake method will pay off. Santorum's near win in Iowa, he said, proved that "grassroots politicking still means something."

"You can't Twitter your way to prosperity. You can't Facebook your way to prosperity. You have to be in the state," Huntsman said today.

One voter in Portsmouth pointed out to Huntsman today that his long-shot campaign for the GOP nomination resembles a David versus Goliath effort, with Romney as Goliath. Huntsman agreed, then paused and tried to add a positive spin: "New Hampshire loves an underdog!" he said hopefully.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The daughters of two presidential candidates – Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman – made appeals on behalf of their fathers to a Republican women’s club here tonight, one damning her father’s opponents with faint praise, the others making an electability argument for their dad.

Addressing about 30 members of the Capital City Republican Women’s Club, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, Gingrich’s daughter with his first wife, first said Rick Santorum, who finished a close second in the Iowa caucus, is a “great guy” and seemed to praise his Congressional record.

“If you remember with the debates,” she said, “he’d mention that he did welfare reform… under Newt Gingrich. And then he did something else… under Newt Gingrich,” she said.

She also seemed to commiserate with the Santorum campaign, saying that the newly high-flying candidate would be bombarded with negative ads just like Gingrich was in Iowa. But, she added, her father was able to weather those attacks, and would be able to handle the general election onslaught.

“People say, ‘can Newt Gingrich survive a billion dollars from the Obama campaign?’ The answer is absolutely yes. He can survive it and he’s been through it in Iowa.”

Santorum was not the only object/target of Cushman’s praise/criticism, as she also took on Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

“[Perry’s] a great guy, he’s done very well in Texas, he’s a very good governor of Texas. But Texas is different from a national scene,” she said. “A part-time Texas legislature is very different than having full-time people in Washington that are determined to stay there and do what they do best. It is a different world.”

As her father has in the past, Cushman called Romney a “great businessman.”

“Anyone can tell you he’s a great businessman. He is. I’m just not sure we need to send the best businessman to Washington to manage something.”

Cushman ended her speech with a personal story about her father, talking about how, as a boy, he rescued his dog Pride from under the cracked ice of a frozen pond in Pennsylvania. In the process, Cushman said, he fell under the ice himself.

“He’s literally under the ice. And he said that’s when he learned in his life not to panic. Because he knew if he panicked, he would die,” she said.

Cushman said the story accomplished two goals: “I think it shows you that he doesn’t panic. And I think you see that as he progresses in this campaign. The other reason is because I think it shows you a window into who he is as a person.”

“That he is a man who would risk his life to save his dog,” she continued.

Jon Huntsman’s daughters Mary Anne and Liddy – two thirds of the “Jon 2012 Girls,” addressed the 20 women who remained in the room after Cushman left.

As she re-introduced herself and her sister (the two spoke to the club over the summer), Mary Anne Huntsman referenced their popularity on YouTube, saying, “we’ve made a couple of videos, maybe you’ve seen them,” as the women chuckled.

Liddy Huntsman called her father the “modern candidate” who would restore a sense of trust that she said has been lost during the Obama administration.

“I think our generation, we were promised hope and change four years ago,” she said. “The fact that we’re being handed down a country that is less good, less confident, is unacceptable.”

Mary Anne touted what she characterized as her father’s ability to go toe-to-toe with President Obama, for whom Huntsman worked as ambassador to China.

“Another huge thing in electing a candidate is the electability factor. We need someone who can really go against Barack Obama,” she said.

CONCORD, N.H. -- In between campaign stops in New Hampshire today, Huntsman said that the latest "bimbo eruptions" surrounding rival Herman Cain have damaged the quality of the GOP race for the White House. The former Utah governor suggested the former pizza CEO should consider leaving the race for the Republican nomination.

“We’ve got real issues to talk about not the latest bimbo eruption,” Huntsman told the Boston Herald editorial board today. He went on to imply that the recent allegation of a 13-year extra-marital affair created “too much of a cloud, in some people’s minds, as to whether or not they would be able to support us going forth.”

Watching the allegations unfold last night on the news from his hotel in New Hampshire, Huntsman told the Globe he asked himself, “‘What about a (financial) downgrade that is being anticipated? What about Europe? What about so many other issues out there that we ought to be talking about and that people ought to understand where candidates come down on those issues?’”

Huntsman, who as of late has seen a minor uptick in Granite State polls, implied that given the combination of sexual allegations and distractions from policy discussions, Cain should consider dropping out of the race. Typically, Huntsman rarely mentions his rivals by name on the campaign trail.

“Given the bandwidth that has been taken out of the discussion of any other issues pertinent to this campaign, a reconsideration might be in order," he told the Boston Globe at a separate editorial meeting.

“Every time another accusation comes up, it diminishes our ability to stay focused on the issues that really do matter for the American people. And I think that’s a disservice to the voters," he told the Globe.

Huntsman declined to take questions on the issue at his campaign stop this evening in Concord.