GEORGE W. BUSH
Biography
With his victory in the 2000 election, George W. Bush became the first son of a president (George Bush, the 41st President) to win the White House since John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, in 1824.
Early Career and Marriage
Bush decided to make his start in the business world in the same place his father had begun—the oil fields of Texas. Returning to his old home town of Midland, Bush began investing in oil leases and exploration. In 1977 he founded his own oil company, Arbusto Corp.
His personal lifestyle was that of a carefree bachelor. “George had a good time…a lot of fun and a lot of wise guy remarks,” his cousin and friend since childhood, John Ellis, later recalled. Much of that changed in 1977 when he met and married Laura Welch, a librarian, who friends say provided a stabilizing influence. In 1981, Laura gave birth to the couple's twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, named for their two grandmothers.
Soon after his marriage, Bush plunged into the first political race of his life, for an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He won the Republican nomination easily, but his opponent in the general election, a conservative Democrat named Kent Hance, defeated him by depicting him as a privileged elitist. “Kent Hance gave me a good lesson in country boy politics,” Bush later recalled. “He was a master of it, funny and belittling. I vowed never to get out-countried again.”
Following that setback, Bush returned to the oil business but found he could not achieve the success his father had years earlier. In his frustration he began to drink heavily, until he realized it was “interfering with my energy level.” On his 40th birthday in 1986, he quit drinking abruptly and permanently. “I made a lot of mistakes when I was young and I learned from my mistakes,” Bush explained to a reporter. “I've asked people to adhere to a higher standard than I did.”
He soon made other changes in his life. He sold off his oil business and went to Washington, D.C., to take up a post as an adviser to his father in the 1988 presidential campaign. After his father entered the White House, he took advantage of an opportunity to enter a new field, major league baseball. He assembled a group of investors, who bought the Texas Rangers and installed Bush as managing partner.
Not all of Bush's decisions as a baseball executive worked out well, but he did well financially. When the team was sold, his original $600,000 investment repaid $15 million. The experience acquired at the helm of the Rangers helped fill an important gap. As Bush told Time magazine, the biggest liability to his running for office in Texas was that people would think he was simply trading on father's name. “Now I can say, ‘I've done something—here it is.’ ”
Governor of Texas
In 1993, after his father’s defeat for re-election as president, Bush announced his candidacy for the governorship of Texas. He faced a formidable opponent in the Democrat incumbent, Ann Richards, known for her aggressive style and sharp tongue. Although Bush certainly benefited from his father’s fame, he had also learned from his father's weaknesses. The senior Bush had been criticized for appearing out of touch with everyday life. His son tried to demonstrate how politics affected ordinary people. He concentrated on four issues: welfare, education, juvenile crime, and legal reforms to limit damages from lawsuits. In November 1994 he defeated Ann Richards and won a 4-year term as governor.
Once in office, Bush gained approval for most of his campaign platform. To fight crime, he signed a law allowing Texans to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons. He initiated educational reforms that gave more independence to local school districts and helped raise test scores. He also challenged schools to stop moving children ahead to the next grade regardless of their ability to learn. “This business of passing children through our schools who can't read has got to end,” he declared. “You either believe that people can learn or not. And I refuse in my state to condemn anybody to failure.” Bush also argued for large cuts in local property taxes—the main source of school funding—intending to replace the lost revenue with state funds. But the legislature resisted and finally approved a reduced cut in property taxes.
Although his policies generally won approval from conservatives, Bush also gained a reputation as a moderate. One reason was his effort to reach out to Hispanic Americans, who usually vote Democrat. Unlike other Republicans, Bush opposed cutting off aid to legal immigrants. He also kept an open mind on the idea of schools offering some courses in both English and Spanish, an approach many others in his party rejected. “My deal on bilingual education is that if it works, if it teaches children, we ought to support the program,” he said.
At the end of his first term, Bush was so popular that Democrats had a hard time finding a candidate to oppose him. In 1998, Bush was re-elected with nearly 70 percent of the overall vote and almost half the Hispanic vote. He was the first Texas governor to win two consecutive 4-year terms.
The 2000 Election
The 2000 presidential election turned out to be the most dramatic in living memory. Late into election night, November 7, it became apparent that the state of Florida, with its 25 electoral votes, would determine the winner. The Florida race was so close, however, that Gore was first declared the winner, then Bush. Gore requested a recount of the votes, but after five tense weeks of both sides appealing to the court system, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on December 12 that uniform standards would have to be agreed upon before a recount could proceed. There was no time for this, though, because the deadline for the certification of Florida electors—also December 12—had essentially passed. Bush was then recognized as the president-elect and inagurated on January 20th, 2001.
Robert Shogan
Author, The Double-Edged Sword: How Character Makes and Ruins Presidents,
from Washington to Clinton