ABSTRACT
As early as 1997, polls showed Bush would top the list of Republican candidates for the 2000 presidential race.1 There was little doubt about Bush’s ambition, but Laura and their daughters were not as keen. Shortly after his father’s victory in 1988, Bush had secretly commissioned a study, called ‘All the President’s Children’, that revealed serious risks to political offspring, and Bush’s twin daughters were not at all enthusiastic about the run.2 They had one year left before graduating from high school and did not like the idea of going to college with Secret Service escorts. Laura Bush would be happy to move out of the limelight of the Governor’s mansion and tend to the life of her family. While campaigning is in Bush’s blood, campaign travel is not. He is a man of dearly held routines: First thing in the morning, he brings his wife coffee in bed and enjoys a fast run at noon in the hot Texas sun.3 He likes to read a bit at night and goes to bed around 10:00 pm. He has no burning desire for the unknown and the untried.4 He made his money on the Texas Rangers and was actually in the process of buying his 1600 acre ranch about 90 miles north of Austin near the hamlet of Crawford.
