Conspiracy theory: Hunstman drops out, Biden doesn't seek VP nomination in 2012, Obama picks Huntsman. It's kind of a reverse-Lieberman: "this will be a bi-partisan administration, the first time in history the president and vice-president will be from different sides of the aisle."

That's an effective commercial. He gets pretty angry about not answering a simple question in a grocery store. Total OCD freak.

Wait. So if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly here, the GOP have decided that the best way to win an election is to just have their candidate answer no questions, and take no firm positions on anything. Also, this is logical next step to running candidates who are blatant, unqualified ideologues?!

It's an effective strategy. Why give babble meat to pundits a year out before the election? By remaining aloof, Romney keeps the aurora of being above the fray. But, it can’t go on too much longer though.

@1: The VP used to be the second-place finisher in the presidential nomination. So no, it wouldn't be the first time that Pres and Veep came from opposite political camps.
Would be kind of nice to see, if only the Republicans would cooperate EVEN THEN.

@5: Fair enough. I'll revise to "first time head of ticket picked opposite party for veep" ;)

It wouldn't do much to sway Republicans; Huntsman is pretty much a Democrat. But it might sway the independents who are so often taken in by Lieberman being the token Democrat that lets Republicans claim "bipartisanship".

@5: Don't you mean "election" as the last word of your first sentence?

Venomlash is only correct about this in 1789 and 1792, when John Adams was the 2nd largest vote getter and he and George Washington were both Federalists. In all elections since, the VP was from the winner’s own party.

Would kinda rule if they did just allow 2nd place overall in the general to take on the role of VP. Or maybe even just a separate popular vote (not that we have a first popular, but whatever) for VP, thus allowing for at least the possibility of a mixed ticket, not to mention (hopefully) forcing candidates to act transparently enough that the public could gauge how willing they'd be to work collabaratively, and cast their votes accordingly. Or perhaps that'd backfire horribly.

Also, I watched that thing twice and each time found myself thinking he was gonna just haul off and punch the guy in the grocery store.

@9: You've seen Dave, right? If the VP isn't to the President's liking, they're in for a 48 month goodwill tour of sub-Saharan Africa.

Notes/Corrections:
Adams ran against Washington for the first two elections and the Federalists were the only party in town.
Venomlash is correct about the third election in 1796. Adams, a Federalist, won against Jefferson: a Democrat-Republican, and chose Jefferson as the VP. But in all elections since the VP was from the winner's own party and the second place election finisher was never a VP.

@3 - OMG that could never happen. Could it?

P.S. I do think Huntsman is kind of hot, in that forbidden-Mormon kind of way....