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I just had a thought that Jon Huntsman will become a 3rd party candidate and be the "John Anderson" of 2012. Anderson was a liberal Republican, just like Huntsman, who ran in the 1980 campaign as an independent.

From Wikipedia:

Most of Anderson's original support came from Rockefeller Republicans who were more liberal than Reagan, but it bled away. Many prominent intellectuals, including the author and activist Gore Vidal, All in the Family creator Norman Lear, and the editors of the liberal magazine The New Republic, also endorsed the Anderson campaign. He also had the support of many independents. Cartoonist Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury ran several strips sympathetic to the Anderson campaign.[9] According to the recently published journals of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis voted for Anderson, as did Schlesinger himself. The hope that Anderson would score when the Democrats split in their support of Ted Kennedy and President Jimmy Carter faded when Kennedy endorsed Carter and the Democrats held together. Anderson's choice of little-known Democrat Patrick Joseph Lucey, a former Governor of Wisconsin, as his running mate signaled that Anderson was unable to win over any prominent Democrat. Although the Carter campaign feared Anderson could be a spoiler, Anderson's campaign turned out to be "simply another option for frustrated voters who had already decided not to back Carter for another term. Polls found Anderson voters nearly as likely to list Reagan as their second choice as Carter."[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Anderson