Who Chose George?

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Bush and his people talk about currents too powerful for any one politician, however canny, to shape. "A lot of this you just can't control," Bush told TIME. "Like generational change. Like incumbency. Like the tides of history." The tides of history, in 1998, could not have been more helpful if he had aligned the moons and planets himself. A popular Democratic Administration was drowning in scandal. The Republican Party in Washington was obsessed, adrift and seemingly intent on proving to voters that it had no clue about what was actually on their minds. And all the while Bush was waltzing to re-election in Texas against a Democratic opponent so hapless that the Democratic lieutenant governor endorsed Bush instead. Bush remarked to his father during the summer that the trickiest part of the job was keeping expectations under control.

But after Nov. 3, there was no controlling much of anything anymore. While Republicans around the country were wiped off the map in key states like California, Bush won his second term with nearly 70% of the vote, including 65% of women, 49% of Hispanics and 27% of blacks. The most divisive Republicans were the ones who went down in flames. Bush had heads snapping with the breadth of his support. And, by the way, his brother Jeb was now the Governor of Florida.

From that moment, among Republicans, the sheer hunger for victory swamped all distinctions of rank, ideology and geography. Corporate chieftains were calling down to Austin, wanting to come visit. Petitions began appearing from state legislators, some orchestrated by Austin, some not, calling on Bush to run or signaling their support if he did. Silicon Valley executives starting taking out ads in newspapers pumping his candidacy. The checks came in unsolicited at state party headquarters, to Republican consultants, to old friends of the Bush family.

At this point it became impossible to separate what the Bush team was doing to fan the flames and the sheer heat of the inferno. Yet the striking thing about this moment, after so many months of quietly working the bellows, is that it seems to have singed even Bush himself. The more it grew and burned out of his control, the less it looked as if he'd have any choice of walking away. Even if the expressions of reluctance had been designed to signal his distance from the process, the doubts now took on a life of their own. Yet each statement of uncertainty only tended to cement his position as far as everyone else was concerned. "The more he said it," said a G.O.P. consultant, "the more he doth protest [too much]. But the more attractive he became."