The wanderer finds his way

Weathering political and business defeats, Bush begins to hit his stride

This is a text adaptation of CNN's Special Report, "Living the Bush Legacy," which aired Sunday, October 29 at 10 p.m. EDT.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In the mid-1970s, oil was booming in West Texas, and George W. Bush was back from Harvard.

"He was by himself," says Midland, Texas banker Don Jones. "He was trying to enter the oil and gas business, really, on a shoestring. He was pretty well-known to a lot of people."

Well known, thanks to his father, the former Texas oilman, now envoy to China and soon to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Bush struggled on his own in business, he was single and dating around.

Then, there came Laura. She was then a librarian living in Austin -- shy, a Methodist. Friends fixed them up.

"She came back, and she said, 'Well, I had dinner with George Bush,'" says Laura Bush's friend, Regan Gammon. "She said, 'He's a really cute guy, you know, and I think he liked me.' ... And then he came to Austin, and then he came to Austin, and then he came to Austin, and he stayed a little longer each time."

Within three months, he was off the list of eligible bachelors.

"She, I think, knew a little bit of his reputation of, 'Here today, gone tomorrow.' And so I don't think she was quick to jump in, and I think that had some appeal to it," says Charlie Younger, Bush's friend from Midland. "It was a lady with class who was smart and bright and didn't fall all over him."

Marrying Laura was a first step to settling down. In the coming years, he would watch his father rise to the highest office - the presidency - while Bush's own ambitions were just beginning to emerge. During these years, the wanderer, you might say, found his way.

Around the time he got married, another opportunity presented itself. In 1977, the local congressman was retiring. Bush jumped at the chance.

"I'll say one thing about campaigning for office in West Texas, you sure do get to do plenty of driving," said Bush in a television commercial during the campaign.

He was just 31 years old and just getting started in oil.

"I think that's the thing we need - less government," said Bush on a campaign swing.

He ran as a friend of the oil business, against regulation and price controls.

"We're asking, What's wrong? Why is it that conservatism can't be sold in our country?" Bush said in a campaign speech.

He stayed strictly conservative: against the Equal Rights Amendment, against sanctioning South Africa for apartheid. He favored cutting taxes. And he had one platinum asset - the family name.

"We took a poll early in the campaign and the poll came back and the number one reason that people preferred George W. Bush was they said he had done a good job in China," says former Texas congressman Kent Hance, Bush's opponent in the race.

George W. knew he couldn't expect a free ride on his father's name.

"And so he consciously said, 'Dad, stay out of this one,'" says Joe O'Neill, a Bush friend from Midland.

His father didn't campaign for him, but family friends, and oil and gas friends, poured money into his campaign. In the end, his opponent's Texas roots were simply deeper.

"We tried to make it a contest of Yale versus Texas Tech, and in Lubbock and Midland, Odessa, Texas Tech will beat Yale every time because they outnumber them about, probably, 10,000 to one," says Hance.

Bush lost, but he learned an important lesson: "Don't let your opponent define you," says O'Neill. "Kent successfully painted George as an outsider, which I don't believe he was."

For Bush, it was back to oil. He used family contacts to find investors for a new company.

"The Bush name obviously helped," says Jones. "But it doesn't help to the point where somebody is going to invest in a bad deal."

Bush's investors made very little money. As often as not, he drilled dry holes. But tax laws made it possible for them to write off nearly 90 percent of their losses. Then, to make matters worse, the bottom dropped out of the price of oil.

"The financial carnage was extraordinary," says Jones. "The First National Bank, which was a bank that had $1.2 billion in assets, failed in October of '83."

For a time, Bush barely held on, while others went under. His company got bailed out not once, but twice, the second time in 1986 by an oil outfit acutely aware that it was putting the son of the vice president on its board of directors.

"I wouldn't be able to start an oil company and lose everybody else's money and be the only person who is able to come out of it and start another company with somebody else's money again," says Molly Beth Malcolm, Texas Democratic chairwoman. "That only happens when you've got connections."

The oil bust hurt, but it also may have helped Bush. It helped get his life in focus. He and Laura had twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara. But he was still drinking - maybe a little too much - until a group of friends celebrated their 40th birthdays.

"We had this big, knockdown, drag-out dinner," says O'Neill. "We weren't so bad that they asked us to leave the dining room, but we probably all woke up with headaches the next day. And George decided, typical George, 'Well, I just don't think I'll drink anymore.'"

"He often said, 'You know, it was - Laura said, "It's me or the bottle,"' said Doug Wead, a former adviser to President Bush. "He'd often say that."

"I always figured that it was a weakness of his that he concluded might embarrass his father someday," says O'Neill.

A little later, he also just quit smoking and he turned to the Bible. He was born again.

"When you accept Christ as the savior, it changes your heart," Bush said earlier this year. "It changes your life."

That answer in a Republican primary debate surprised people, but not those who know him well.

"He has not embraced evangelical culture, evangelical music, evangelical worship," says Wead. "It's not his bag. But he's had this thing happen in his life. There's no question about that."

As Bush was turning his life around, his father ran for president.

At the 1988 Republican convention in New Orleans, the future first son cast the votes that clinched his father's nomination: "Texas casts all its votes for her favorite son and the best father in America - George Bush!"

In the general election, Bush worked closely with one of the masters of hardball politics - Lee Atwater.

He learned from the Republican National Committee chair, who died in 1991 from a brain tumor.

"Just because the other side's practicing dumb politics, that doesn't mean we're gonna follow suit," Atwater once said.

"In politics, if you don't respond, you die," says Ron Kaufman, a former adviser to President Bush. "...I think Gov. Bush, like perhaps his father before him, when called for, when attacked, you defend yourself."

When his father took the Oval Office, Bush had no desire to stay around Washington. He went back to Texas, where another career opportunity presented itself, courtesy of an oil associate and a family friend. This time, it was baseball.

"He's Texas people," said Eddie Chiles at a public appearance. "And he will do great things with the Rangers baseball team. George Bush: Give him a hand."

In March 1989, Bush became part owner of the Texas Rangers, a 2 percent share for $600,000 in borrowed money. He was the managing general partner, the front man for the team, in the stands every home game. And he loved it.

"It was great training for him to be in public office," says Tom Schieffer, former president of the Texas Rangers. "...He was dealing with the media every day... He was dealing with people every day, dealing with the public every day."

Whenever possible, the Bush seniors pitched in with public relations. "Now, throwing out the ceremonial first pitch for tonight's ballgame - Mrs. Barbara Bush," said a ballpark announcer.

It was a good time to be a Bush. The Texas Rangers were starting to win ballgames, and George Senior was winning the Gulf War.

With his dad at 91 percent in the polls, George W. once again began to think about politics -- the possibility of running for governor of Texas.