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When George Bush won the election, his eldest son returned to Texas, a move that shocked Washington careerists, who saw campaign work as a way to grab a piece of the power. But Junior had something else in mind. When he moved to Dallas in late 1988, he was thinking hard about running for Governor of Texas. It isn't clear when he got the idea--he mentioned it to a friend as early as Thanksgiving 1988--or what he thought he had to offer besides his stewardship of unsuccessful oil companies. Still, he told a reporter in early 1989, "If I run, I'll be most electable. Absolutely, no question in my mind. In a big media state like Texas, name identification is important. I've got it."
He had little else. As he would tell TIME a few months later, "My biggest liability in Texas is the question 'What's the boy ever done? He could be riding on Daddy's name.'" Bush knew he needed an accomplishment, One Big Thing to lay at the feet of Texas voters. And when he got a chance to reel one in, the opportunity came--like so many in his life--straight out of the Bush family Rolodex.
1990 ONE BIG THING
Bush had learned from Bill Dewitt, his old Spectrum 7 partner and a major donor to his father, that the Texas Rangers were going up for sale. The team was owned by yet another Bush family friend, Eddie Chiles, who decided out of admiration for Bush's father to give George W. a chance to buy the team. George W. had been a baseball zealot since his Little League days in Midland. He had played at Andover and briefly at Yale. (He was cut from the team. Dad, of course, was team captain there in 1948.) "George had always dreamed about owning a baseball team," says Laura. "He always wanted to own the Astros. To live in the wall of the Astrodome like Brewster McCloud."
For President Bush, the tongue-tied patrician, baseball had been a way to connect with his kids. One time during George W.'s college years, when he had incurred his father's wrath by leaving a summer job early, "George felt really bad," Laura says. "So then in a little bit his dad called and said, 'I've got tickets to the game tonight. Do you want to go?' And George knew his dad was making everything O.K."
Bush hustled to bag the Rangers. He assembled a group of investors, including DeWitt, Reynolds and Yale chum Roland Betts. Peter Ueberroth, then commissioner of baseball, persuaded financier Richard Rainwater to join forces with Bush. Together they bought the team for $83 million in April 1989. To fund his minuscule $500,000 share (eventually his investment grew to $606,000), George W. borrowed from a Midland bank where he was a director, using his Harken stock as collateral. He and Edward ("Rusty") Rose, front man for Rainwater's investment syndicate, became the team's managing general partners.
Bush acknowledges that his name and connections played a major role in his success. "Look, I don't deny it. How could I?" he says. "Being George Bush's son has its pluses and negatives. Eddie [Chiles] felt comfortable with me because he felt comfortable with my family. But I was also the person that aggressively sought the deal. I was a pit bull on the pant leg of opportunity. I wouldn't let go."