After successfully helping his father win both the Religious Right and those people afraid of "Willie Hortons" running loose through the streets of America in the 1988 presidential election, George W. decided to go back to Texas. Three days after his father's election, he and Laura cleared escrow on a ranch-style house in North Dallas and moved there shortly thereafter.

W. really wanted to run for Governor of Texas against Ann Richards in 1990. But Karl Rove and he had already had some private polling done within the Texas GOP. The Texas operative quietly ran W.'s name by big-money GOP party members...But when she called back from the reconnaisance mission, she had bad news: "George, everybody likes you, but you haven't done anything. You need to go out in the world and do something, the way your father did...You haven't done shit. You're a Bush and that's all." ("First Son," Minutaglio, pages 235-236)

Just before the election, he had heard that Eddie Chiles, a Bush family friend, was trying to sell the Texas Rangers baseball team. Despite the fact that he was "all name and no money" ("Family," page 427), he decided to throw himself into the battle for ownership of the Rangers. As W says himself in his autobiography -- "I...pursued the purchase like a pit bull on the pant leg of opportunity." ("A Charge to Keep," George W. Bush, pages 197-203)

Rove was gung-ho for this idea. It would give W. visibility and "as owner of the Rangers, he is anchored in the minds of Texans as a Texan businessman. It gives him instant exposure and identification." ("First Son," Minutaglio, page 240)