Word: ranches
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BROOKS KRAFT, who took the photos of Bush at his ranch, has dogged the Governor's steps full time since January. He found Bush outwardly calm and confident, even during the low spots of his campaign. "You had to look at him carefully to pick up on the tension," says Kraft. The two got on well, with Bush inquiring regularly about the baby Kraft and his wife are expecting. "I think it comes naturally to him to remember this stuff--that's how he's bonded with Democrats in Texas...
...gully as if they'd been rolled there like dice. "I'm gonna put a wooden walkway of some kind in here," he says, dodging a vine. Bush can look as if he's clanging around in a blue suit, but he doesn't look lost on the ranch in the Marlboro Man getup: worn black jeans, a blue work shirt and a mustard-colored barn jacket with stains and a corduroy collar. The breast reads: GEORGE W. BUSH, GOVERNOR...
...part of this outing at the darkest moment of the 36-day postelection battle with Al Gore is almost a country-boy ruse. Of course he wants us to see him here. This ranch, which he bought just a year ago, is a rich Texas symbol of achievement--what kids from the Midland dream of having. And it wasn't handed down. That ranch is all that he sees himself to be: rugged, real and thoroughly Texan. But Bush's persona at the ranch is also more than an act. He seems at peace in this place where he knows...
...took Jenna out here," says Bush of one of his twin daughters. "Because when we bought the ranch she was like, 'Why?'" Bush knows a lot of others have been wondering the same thing. In photo ops the only part of the Crawford ranch the world can see makes it look like one of those dry, generic planets that are always beamed down to on Star Trek. This place in central Texas, just 23 miles southwest of Waco, is Bush's sanctuary. Nearly every weekend of the campaign he came here; he prepared for debates in its two-room cottage...
...prefers to guide by the big picture and the bottom line. While Gore enjoyed playing at the molecular level, Bush is annoyed by it. Every aide tells you this is the key to understanding his leadership approach. And it is the way to understand how he rules the ranch too. The stuff has to be cleared to get the broader view, cleared so that you can see from the land on top of his property down into the greener valley. We stop at an overlook he has just thinned out so that he can show Laura. Each night they take...