Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is about a week and a half away from announcing he will run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, he told CNN on Friday.

“We’re right at the end point. And is your family supportive? Yes, you check that box. Do you think you can rally enough financial support to make it happen? Yes, you check that box. Do you think on the ground, in the key early states — New Hampshire and South Carolina and Florida — you can create the presence and the excitement and enthusiasm that will work? Yeah, you check that box. We basically checked all the boxes,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Friday. The interview was aired Sunday.

Huntsman estimated that he has visited 12 states, some of them multiple times, in a little more than a month to lay the groundwork for a campaign. He plans to speak with his family again about the matter before making an announcement, he said, declining to say where it might take place.

“We’ve only been at it about five weeks and we’ve moved about as fast as you can move, and then you cross that impasse and final barrier and then you’re in, and then you do everything that needs to be done from there,” he said.

He said it was “a great honor” to serve as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to China, a position he held until late April, but he explained that he and the president have “different world views.”

He harshly criticized Obama’s economic policies, saying there have been “no signs of success.”