-Caveat Lector-
George Walker Bush has already raised SO MUCH money for his presidential
campaign that next to nothing is left for any opposing Republican candidate.
Face it -- Bush will prove that you CAN buy the Presidency of the United
States,
in these, the "money is everything" '90s.
As for what Bush STANDS FOR, well, it's this: "money is everything."
Americans ask who is George W. Bush?
By Alan Elsner, Political Correspondent
AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 22 (Reuters) - He has one of the most famous names in
U.S. politics, he has shattered all campaign fund-raising records and he is
leading in the 2000 presidential race by a wide margin.
But who is Texas Gov. George W. Bush?
A year before the election, many voters are just beginning to wake up to the
fact that they really know very little about the man who may well become
their next leader. They remember his father, former President George Bush,
and his mother, Barbara Bush, but the younger Bush, at this stage of the
campaign, remains largely a blank slate.
``People have a general sense about Bush, that he's a moderate conservative,
and they know something about his family because of his father, but they
don't know him in any detail,'' said Andrew Kohut, who heads the Pew Research
polling company.
``There's a lot to be learned about George W. Bush, both in a personal and
policy sense,'' Kohut said.
In a recent Reuters poll of Republicans in New Hampshire, who have seen more
of Bush than most Americans, 55 percent said they did not know enough about
him to elect him president.
That should change in the next few months as voters tune into the campaign
and see more of Bush campaigning and debating his Republican rivals.
Television campaign ads, both for and against him, will also broaden the
picture.
In a sense, a crucial part of the 2000 election battle will be the extent to
which Bush succeeds in defining himself -- or whether he lets his opponents
define him. Will he appear as a man of the people -- a lover of baseball and
country music with a gift for leadership -- or will he be seen an empty suit,
intellectually lazy and proud of it?
Whatever their other weaknesses, nobody doubts the intellectual capabilities
of both Democratic presidential candidates, Vice President Al Gore and
ex-Sen. Bill Bradley.
DOES BUSH HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?
``Bush's vulnerability, especially compared to Gore or Bradley, will be
gravitas: Is he really qualified, does he know enough, does he have what it
takes to be president?'' Kohut said.
The first two of an expected flood of biographies of Bush appeared this
month. Both ``First Son'' by Dallas Morning News reporter Bill Minutaglio and
``Fortunate Son'' by freelance journalist J.H. Hatfield paint Bush as
charming and politically gifted. But they do not answer the essential
question of who he really is or what kind of president he might become.
Bush's aides and advisers are well aware of the danger that he will be
perceived as an intellectual lightweight. In interviews, they constantly
stress his abilities.
His domestic policy adviser Stephen Goldsmith told Reuters in an interview
that Bush always read and absorbed the policy papers he was sent and he
dominated political discussions.
His foreign policy adviser Condoleezza Rice said Bush was interested in that
area as well. ``The good thing about Gov. Bush is he likes foreign policy.
When I first climbed on with him, I wasn't sure about that,'' she told
Reuters in August.
But the fact that a Bush adviser even had to make the point was significant.
No aides to Bush's main rivals feel the need to tell reporters their boss is
interested in foreign policy.
In a New York Times book review, conservative columnist David Brooks summed
up the Bush persona as ``an aversion to grand ideas and a talent for male
bonding.''
``Those traits put him out of step with more ideological decades but he is
effortlessly at ease in our own. It could be that George W. Bush is a
deceptively deep guy and ... there is more there than meets the eye. Or
maybe, he's merely destiny's darling,'' Brooks wrote.
BUSH THE UGLY DUCKLING?
The mystery of who Bush really is stems from his life, which mirrors the
children's fable of the ugly duckling suddenly transformed into a handsome
swan. Until 1994, when he was elected as governor of Texas, he was known as
the mediocre son of a distinguished father. There was little hint that he
might conceal presidential mettle within his fun-loving soul.
A hard-drinking fraternity boy, an average student and a less-than-successful
businessman, Bush's greatest moment before becoming governor was helping put
together a consortium that bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in 1989.
The turning point in Bush's life came in the 1994 election for governor of
Texas, a mere two years after his father was turned out of the White House by
Bill Clinton. By defeating the feisty and charismatic Democratic incumbent
Ann Richards, Bush established himself as an immensely likable campaigner
with shrewd political instincts and the magic ability to establish a natural
rapport with voters.
When he won reelection in a landslide in 1998, garnering almost half the
Hispanic vote in the process, it became clear that Bush was the Republicans'
best hope of winning back the presidency in 2000 after eight years of
Clinton.
The only stumble in what has been a well-run campaign came when Bush
equivocated about rumours of past cocaine use. First he refused to discuss
what he may or may not have done as a youth, then he said he had not used
illegal drugs at least since 1974. But polls showed the voters did not care
and no witnesses came forward to allege actual illegal behaviour.
The eldest son of George and Barbara Bush, George Walker Bush was born in New
Haven, Connecticut, in 1946. The family moved to Midland, an oil town in West
Texas, in 1950 and Bush followed in his father's footsteps in 1961, enrolling
in the exclusive Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he was an
average student who never made the honour roll.
BOISTEROUS, HARD-DRINKING FRAT MAN
After graduating from Yale, his father's alma mater, where he was a
boisterous president of the hard-drinking Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity,
Bush had a variety of jobs, distinguishing himself in none.
He avoided service in Vietnam by enlisting in 1968 as a pilot in the Texas
National Guard. Documents suggested he was accepted at least partly because
of who his father was.
Bush got an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1975. Two years later, he
married Laura Welch, a librarian who became a steadying influence on him. The
couple have 17-year-old twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara.
In 1978, Bush ran unsuccessfully for a Texas seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives. His personal skills were already apparent but the political
environment was not right for him.
The next years he spent as a West Texas oil man. Three times he was saved
from financial trouble by partners who gave him a fresh start or new
infusions of capital.
In 1986, his firm, Spectrum 7 Energy Corp., was more than $3 million in debt
when it was bailed out by Harken Energy Corp. Bush got $300,000 from the deal
and put the money to work in the consortium that bought the Texas Rangers.
When Bush sold his stake in the baseball club, he realised $14.9 million.
He worked as unofficial adviser to his father during his successful 1988
presidential campaign and the four years of his administration. His most
prominent moment came when he told then White House chief of staff John
Sununu he had to resign.
As others try to figure out who Bush is, he seems comfortable with himself.
He often says he did not dream as a boy of becoming president -- he wanted to
be a baseball star -- and would not be crushed if he failed to win the big
prize.
That kind of inner serenity reminds many of another U.S. president who was
reviled by some as a know-nothing but who is now rated as one of the
country's more influential leaders.
His name: Ronald Reagan.
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