It's about the general election, stupid...

If the nomination is still in play, as I keep insisting, then we all need to remember that the choice we'll end up confirming sometime in March, and ratifying in July, is all about November. I know that the preferred rallying cry is "Anybody But Bush," but the fact is that it's going to be somebody against Bush, and that's got to be somebody that can win.

That's why the Stop Dean movement is growing, and why I hope it's successful. As John Kerry has said, Dr. Dean will make a great Surgeon General. I don't see a chance in hell that he's ever be President , and Will Saletan points out one of the biggest reasons in Slate.

After noting that despite his bid to become this year's "Mr. Populism," Dr. Dean's blood is bluer than his collar, Saletan notes the incongruity of Dean, in T-shirt and necktie, onstage with his new buddies in Labor, saying that he looked like "a lawyer who has wandered into the wrong bar."

That's not his biggest problem, though. Saletan looks hard at Dean's uncomfortable populist stance and judges that "...in combination with his position on Bush's tax cuts, it's fatal."

"On its face, it's a losing argument: Bush gave you so little money that Dean needs to take it back." the columnist writes, and concludes "That's one postwar fight Bush can expect to win."

I'm afraid he's right, and that's a big reason that I'm afraid of Howard Dean.