George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. Formerly the 46th Governor of the State of Texas, President Bush has earned a reputation as a compassionate conservative who shapes policy based on the principles of limited government, personal responsibility, good work ethic, strong families, good traditions and local control. These are a few reasons why the President earned another term at office in 2004. The 2004 Presidential Election was truly one of the most brutal and divided elections in American history since the Civil War.
But as you can see, through good morals and the backing of fifty two percent of the votes, President George W. Bush took up another four year term in Washington D. C. at the White House. George W. Bush happened to have lived a very interesting life, starting from his childhood to his life in the White House. Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut, the first child of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Pierce Bush. His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a Wall Street financier who was elected to the Senate from Connecticut in 1952.
Although George Herbert Walker Bush began his career in the oil industry, he eventually served as a congressman, head of the Republican National Committee, ambassador to the United Nations, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and vice president, and eventually President of the United States. At the age of two, Bush moved with his parents from Connecticut to Odessa, Texas, where his father embarked on a career in the petroleum business. After a year in Texas, the family relocated to California for business reasons.
A year later, the family moved back to Texas and settled in Midland, a town in western Texas located about 300 miles from Fort Worth. Bush lived in Midland from 1950 to 1959. In 1953 his younger sister Robin, the next oldest child in the family, died from leukemia. He received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School. He served as an F-102 pilot for the Texas Air National Guard before beginning his career in the oil and gas business in Midland in 1975, working in the energy industry until 1986.
After working on his father’s successful 1988 presidential campaign, he assembled the group of partners that purchased the Texas Rangers baseball franchise in 1989. He became managing general partner of the Texas Rangers until he was elected Governor of Texas on November 8, 1994, winning by 53. 5 percent of the vote. In an historic re-election victory, he became the first Texas Governor to be elected for two consecutive four-year terms on November 3, 1998, winning 68. 6 percent of the vote.
President Bush is married to Laura Welch Bush, a former teacher and librarian, and they have 19-year-old twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna Bush. The Bush family also includes their dogs, Spot and Barney, and a cat, India. In the 2004 Presidential Election, Laura Bush provided a very smooth touch to the President’s campaign. She provided strong support when it came down to issues of women’s rights in Afghanistan, and even stronger support when it came to the education in America.
His daughters Jenna and Barbara Bush also stepped out of the shadows to support their father during this election while they were kept more behind the scenes in the President’s first election. This helped the President come on with a well-built look and feel towards the families of America. President Bush is pursuing the same common-sense approach and bipartisan spirit that he used in Texas. He has proposed bold initiatives to ensure that America’s prosperity has a purpose. He has also addressed issues on improving our nation’s public schools by strengthening local control and insisting on accountability.
Reducing taxes on all taxpayers, especially for those Americans on the fringes of poverty is another immense issue that needs to be resolved. Also the President strongly supports the strengthening the military with better pay, better planning, and better equipment; will keep the soldiers in Iraq more prepared for battle. Saving and strengthening Social Security and Medicare by providing seniors with more options; and ushering in the responsibility era in America instead of government controlled pharmacy is another concern the President has for the people of America.
Many issues were also debated during the 2004 Presidential Election. Some of the issues such as the war in Iraq struck hard on the minds of many conservative voters. Also issues of healthcare, education, gay rights, the Patriot Act, and a strong moral concern over stem cell research were debated in public debates broadcast over national television. The liberal media often attacked the debates by saying that the President did poorly. These channels were also showing that Senator Kerry took the lead on most of the issues during the debates.
Many times the commentators on the channels showed their bias when they chose Kerry as the winner in all three live debates. But as you can see, America made its mind not on how the liberal media perceived their President, but by who they thought would make the better president for our country. As the polls were proved wrong and the real issues came down to traditions and common-sense, the President Bush won the 2004 election by a majority vote (over 50%) making him the first president, after his father’s presidency, to win the election by a majority.
Furthermore the Democratic Party lost two times consecutively being represented by both Vice President Al Gore and Senator John Kerry. Bush’s victory in 2004 was the largest amount of votes in U. S. history that have been cast for a sitting president. He won by 2. 7% over his opponent John Kerry. Throughout history stories have been told of great countries with even greater leaders such as Julius Caesar or Abraham Lincoln. These leaders were not chosen by the media or blamed for the tragedies that they couldn’t have been prepared for.
These leaders were leaders that took what they were given, learned how to defeat a common enemy, united their people, and were rewarded with their glory being remembered for centuries. Though George W. Bush might not be a Lincoln or a Caesar, but the ability to unite a country after 9/11 and go to war to free oppressed countries and fight terrorism with the backing of the worlds largest super power, puts him somewhere on the charts.