George W.

Bush

George Walker Bush was born on july 6,1946.As a the eldest son of Barbara bush and 41st president George H.W. Bush he had an upper hand in becoming a political figure.His professional career started when he graduated from Yale University(1968) and Hardvard Buisness School(1975) when he created Arbusto Energy.Later the name was changed to Bush Exploration.In 1984 Bush Exploration merged with Spectrum 7,a larger company,making George Bush the chairman of Spectrum 7.However with the decreasing oil prices the company folded into Harken energy where bush served on the board with the directors.Questions arose about a possible insider trading but SEC(Securities and Exchange commissions) cleared Bush as innocent. After this point his career stagnated until he ran for Texas governor in 1994.Focusing on 4 things:welfare reform,tort reform,crime reduction and education improvement he won the Republican primary very easily.After the republican primary he had to face a popular democratic incumbent governor Ann Richards.With 53.5 % Bush won the general election and became the governor of Texas.Highlights of his first term as a Texas governor would be:pushing trough a 2 billion dollars tax-cut,extending government funding for organizations providing education of the dangers of alchohol and drug use and abuse,help reduce domestic violence.In 1998 Bush won the re-elections with a record 69 % of the vote.He became the first governor in Texas that was elected for two consecutive four-year terms.As time passed Bush kept getting more attention by for example making Texas be the leading producer of wind powered electricity.He used this attention and within a year of his re-election he sought the Republican nomination for the presidency. In June 1999 ,while governor of Texas,Bush announced his candidacy for the President of the United States.Bush entered a large field of candidates for the Republican party however later on,by early 2000,the race focused only on McCain and Bush.Bush portrayed himself as a compassionate conservative,implying he was more centrist than other Republicans.He campaigned on ideas that included increasing the size of the United States Armed Forces,cutting taxes,improving education and aiding minorities.In the General election Bush asked Dick Cheney to be his running mate,the vice president,which in turn surprised some of the observers.On November 7th the election reutns came in and Bush won by 29 states.However a recount was ordered because of the closeness of the Florida

outcome.The re-count also went to Bush even though he had five hundred thousand less individual votes but 5 more electoral votes(Bushs 271 to Gores 266 electoral votes). In 2004 he did not encounter a primary challange and appointed Ken Mehlman as his campaign manager.His political strategies were devised by Karl Rowe.In this election he faced a democratic Massachusetts senator John Kerry.His campaign was advertised across the United States against Democratic candidates propagading that democrats will increase the size of the government and raise taxes.The democrat,John Kerry,attacked Bush constantly on the Iraq War,a failure to stimulate the economy and job growth.Bush used the critizing from Kerrys side about the Iraqi war as a sign he is lacking the decisiveness and vision necessary for the success in the War on Terror.In the Election,Bush carried 31 of 50 states with a total of 286 electoral votes.He won an outright majority of the popular vote(50.7 % to opponents 48.3 %).The previous president who won the outright majory of the popular vote was his father in 1988 election. Bush took his presidential oath on January 20,2001.Although he originally planned to focus on issues regarding improvement of the economic state of U.S. his plans were drastically changed by 9/11.After the terrorist attacks in 2001 wars were waged in Afghanistan and later in Iraq while significant debates were discussed within United States.Over the 8 year period the previously high approval ratings steadily declined during his whole presidency while the disapproval ratings kept rising and rising.During 2007 the United States entered into the longest post World War II recession and Bushs administration responded by trying to stimulate U.S.s economy with economic programs but the damage was already done. After his term as the president of United States he ceased to be an important political figure.The highlights of his political career would be withdrawing from a number of international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol on global warming(reducing of the amount of glasshouse gases produced).After the series of terrorist attacks he announced The War on Terror,which included invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.In addition to national security issues Bush also promoted policies on the economy,health care,education and social security reform.He signed important acts such as:the PATRIOT act,the No child left behind act,the partial birth abortion ban act.Other important documents he signed were medicare

prescription drug benefits for seniors,broad tax cuts and he also pushed in some laws regarding electronic surveillance and enhanced interrogation techniques as part of the War on Terror agenda.However all this was,was a strip of civil liberties which unfortunately are still in effect today and will only get worse.

Prior to his marriage,Bush had multiple episodes of alchohol abuse.In one of these episodes,on September 4,1976,he was arrested near his familys summer home in Kennebunkport,Maine because he was driving under the influence of alchohol.He pleaded guilty and got a 150 $ fine and his Maines drivers license taken away until 1978. His drug use on the other hand is very unclear.On every occasion he was asked about his past illicit drug use,Bush consistenly refused to answer.He defended his refusal to answer in a publicized casual conversation with a friend saying that he feared setting a bad example for the younger generation.We can only speculate what he meant by this.

References: www.wikipedia.com www.famoustexans.com/georgewbush.htm http://www.ontheissues.org/george_w__bush.htm Written by: Filip Milneri