WI:President and Vice president don't run together

Mister Abbadon

Before it became clear how important political parties would be in the United States the vice president was the person who got the second most votes. What if this wasn't abandoned?
 

Just a Rube

It lasts until a President ends up with a Vice President who despise each other, at which point everyone agrees "wait, this was a terrible idea".

Which will happen very soon; the fact that as soon as Washington left the stage, the next two elections immediately demonstrated two different massive flaws in the system indicates that it's the sort of thing that isn't going to remain hidden for very long.

I also suspect that even if you didn't have formal parties, you'd certainly have various factions that will form semi-permanent alliances, becoming parties in all but name. After all, OTL we had such factions already forming before the ink was even dry on the Constitution. Remember that the Brits likewise had factions that coalesced into parties, as has pretty much every other legislative body. There will be a tendency for these allied factions to coordinate, and you'll end up with informal "he'll be the President, she'll be the VP agreements." Eventually coming around to something like the OTL campaign system.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

It was a really stupid idea in the first place, which is why it was abandoned almost at once.

Once you had parties, or even recognzed factions, the guy in second WILL be from the other party/faction.

You really want to encourage assassination as a part of the regular political process? Because you'd get that pretty darn quickly.
 

Codae

Dathi THorfinnsson said:
It was a really stupid idea in the first place, which is why it was abandoned almost at once.

Once you had parties, or even recognzed factions, the guy in second WILL be from the other party/faction.

You really want to encourage assassination as a part of the regular political process? Because you'd get that pretty darn quickly.
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Well, not if you set up a running-mate system like they used in 1800. Of course, the Republicans screwed that up pretty badly IOTL, so it may not be as stable as I think.
 
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