Conservatives Grumbling about Bush and other oddities...

Is it me or do the vocal grumblings about Bush I've read from conservatives (Among those, note here, and here) provide a grain of hope for the general election? Think '92, when along came H. Ross Perot to splinter the GOP. Now I'm not saying that we'll see a repeat of '92, but in an election this close, if we can get enough libertarians to splinter off from the GOP to equal the amount of voters that went to Nader from the Democrats in 2000, it certainly couldn't hurt things.

On a completely unrelated note, how about this one? A Swedish chef gets fired because his cooking was too good and caused too many long lines in the cafeteria of an engineering firm.

Finally, an observation regarding the likeability of candidates: What was it that initially drew people into but then caused them to recoil from Jerry Brown, John McCain, H. Ross Perot and Patrick Buchanon?

Jerry Brown: Permanent scowl on his face. No sense of humor. I don't think I've ever seen him smile. Right message (campaign finance reform, build a campaign by small donations), wrong messenger. That was a meme before the word meme was in print.

John McCain: "I hate the gooks." Plus he acts and sounds a lot like the Bruno Kirby character in "Good Morning Vietnam."

H. Ross Perot: "I'm all ears" among others. Also known by a good friend of mine who dubbed it at the time, "Captain Soundbite." After withdrawal from the race and then re-entry, people began to realize the guy was cantankerous at best, clinically insane at worst.

Buchanon: This phenomenon is what happens when you read about it in the papers and then hear the guy open his mouth. Scared a lot of people.

What am I getting at with all of this? Like it or not, Dean, with his speech immortalized in its out of context splendor and still pictures of the event that make him look like he's about to bite the head off of a bat, has been placed, for better or worse, into the unlikeable category.

It's a shame. Somebody please tell me that I'm making a grave mistake by turning my back on his campaign in a pragmatic plea for "anybody but Bush."