Agreed, Bush looked like a small-town used car dealer - a shabby looking ignoramus who's desperately trying to be cunning - but that appeals to a lot of people in this country, especially lower-middle-class males who are just like that - ignorant and cocky.
Another issue - "third-partyism" annoys me just like third-worldism and third-wayism do. In the ideal world, yes, it would be nice to have something else that two big-business parties, but we do not live in an ideal world and have deal with what we have. Those who pop-up as 'third party' presidential candidates are either pathetically naive or act as the fifth column splitting votes. A genuine effort would be party-building at the grass-roots. For a while I though the Labor Paerty was serious in that - but what happened to them?
So in the absence of any real alternative - Gore seems the only choice or rather the "lesser weevil".
Wojtek