BUSH, GEORGE W.

born July 6, 1946, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. in full George Walker Bush 43rd president of the United States (2001 ). Narrowly winning the electoral college vote over Vice President Al Gore in one of the closest and most controversial elections in American history, Bush became the first person since 1888 to become president despite losing the nationwide popular vote. Before assuming the presidency of the United States, Bush was a businessman and served as Texas governor (19952000). Bush was a member of a distinguished political family, his paternal grandfather, Prescott Bush, having been a U.S. senator from Connecticut (195262) and his father, George Bush, having served as the 41st president of the United States (198993). The younger Bush grew up largely in Midland and Houston, Texas. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University in 1968 and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, he served as a helicopter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard and in the mid-1970s started an oil business in Midland. In 1978 he attempted to enter politics but was narrowly defeated in his bid for election to the U.S. House of Representatives. After selling his oil business, he began in 1986 to work for his father's presidential campaign as an adviser and speechwriter. He became managing partner in a group of investors who bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in 1989, a position that placed him in the public eye. In 1994 Bush defeated incumbent Ann Richards for the governorship of Texas; he was the first child of a U.S. president ever to be elected a state governor. His successful initiatives included reform of the Texas welfare system, a tax cut, tort reform, increased spending for schools, and a tougher approach to juvenile criminalsthough his proposed reform of the state's tax structure was defeated in the legislature. He was reelected in 1998, becoming the first Texas governor to win consecutive four-year terms. His support among Hispanic voters, an important factor in Texas politics, was unusually strong for a Republican Party candidate. On June 12, 1999, Bush formally announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. He described his political philosophy as compassionate conservatism, a doctrine that combined traditional Republican economic and social policies with concern for the underprivileged, and he quickly gathered the endorsement of a large number of Republican officeholders and maintained strong leads in the polls. He also outdistanced all other Republican candidates in fund-raising, collecting approximately $100 million for his primary election campaign. During the campaign he published an autobiography, A Charge to Keep (written with Karen Hughes). Despite his refusal to answer specific questions about his private life (he admitted having had a drinking problem earlier in his life but would not address inquiries about any use of illegal drugs), Bush survived a vigorous challenge in the Republican primary from Senator John McCain and won the Republican nomination, taking a strong lead in the public opinion polls over Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic Party nominee. As the general election campaign continued, the gap in the polls between Bush and Gore narrowed to the closest in any election in 40 years. Although Bush lost the nationwide popular vote by 500,000 votes out of 105 million cast, the presidency hinged on Florida's 25 electoral votes. Although Bush narrowly led Gore in Florida's official machine-recount tallies, the Bush campaign filed suit in federal court to stop any further recounts after Gore asked for manual recounts in four heavily Democratic Florida counties. Thereafter, both sides filed several legal challenges, with the Gore campaign seeking a manual recount of the undervotes (i.e., ballots that machines recorded as not clearly expressing a presidential vote) in select counties. For five weeks after election day, the result remained unresolved as the Florida and federal courts weighed the legal challenges. With Bush leading Gore in Florida by fewer than 1,000 votes, the Florida Supreme Court by a 43 margin ordered a statewide manual recount of the approximately 45,000 undervotes and the inclusion of hand-counted ballots in two counties that had not been previously certified by Florida's secretary of state, thereby reducing Bush's margin to under 200 votes before the manual recounting began. The Bush campaign quickly filed an appeal to halt the manual recount, which the U.S. Supreme Court granted by a 54 vote pending oral arguments. Concluding (72) that a quick statewide recount could not be performed fairly unless elaborate ground rules were established, the court issued a controversial 5 to 4 decision to reverse the Florida Supreme Court's recount order, effectively awarding the presidency to Bush. By winning Florida, Bush narrowly won the electoral vote over Gore by 271 to 266only one more than the required 270. After Gore conceded defeat, Bush struck a conciliatory tone, promising to reach out to Democrats and declaring that I was not elected to serve one party but to serve one nation. Whether you voted for me or not, I will do my best to serve your interests. With his inauguration, Bush became only the second son of a president to assume the nation's highest office; the other was John Quincy Adams (182529), the son of John Adams (17971801).