Huntsman is the future of the GOP if they play their cards right. Social-cons needs to form their own party.
I actual suspect you're right, in the sense Huntsman's positions will become more dominate in the GOP in another 10-20 years. While the social-cons still hold power, they are on the decline.
As for Huntsman himself making it onto a ticket, maybe. I'm a little skeptical, since I feel he needed to get a little more exposure in the primaries earlier this year to build a foundation to work off of. Also, as I said, the social-cons still hold power, enough to deny him the nomination. I think we'll see a GOP nominee in the mold of Huntsman sometime in the 2020's, but not necessarily Huntsman himself.
Ryan would be a mistake to head a national ticket. Now, I am a liberal and someone who votes Democratic and obviously have a number of ideological disagreements with Ryan. But even if I was a Republican, I still think I'd be against Ryan simply because there are stronger, more charismatic candidates in the possible 2016 lineup, like Chris Christie and Marco Rubio. Ryan comes off too stiff and doesn't really seem inspiring, at least in my opinion.
