Since then, Laura Welch Bush has carried on as she began: by calming her exuberant, sometimes intemperate husband. She is mom to twin girls, Jenna and Barbara, seniors at Austin High. She works with an architect on the design of the contemporary limestone house the Bushes plan to build next year on their new ranch between Dallas and Austin. Her almost preternatural placidity is an important asset to Bush: she’s determined not to let the presidential campaign make her–or him–crazy.
It won’t be easy. Her husband is under attack for foreign-policy naivete. Debates are looming. John McCain is gaining in New Hampshire. Laura’s role is less tactical than, say, Hillary Clinton’s was in her husband’s races; Mrs. Bush instead seems to provide the governor with a comfort zone. She’s already waved off questions about whether Bush is experienced enough to be president. “She has taken it all in stride,” says Regan Gammon, Laura’s friend since fourth grade. “She knows how smart he is.” Laura takes the long view. “The campaign is anxiety-provoking, there’s no doubt about it,” she says. “What I remember from the ‘92 election is waking up every morning and feeling anxious when George went out to get the newspaper. I’d think, ‘What’s it going to be today?’ I’m certainly aware that we could get to that, but this time it’s easier to slough off. I think when it’s your parents, it’s harder, just like it would be if it were your child.” Former president Bush understands what Laura does for his eldest son: “Golly,” says George Bush Sr., “she sure can calm him down.”
Laura seems to have learned it early. “She was just born a nice quiet little kiddo,” says her mother, Jenna Welch, now 80, of her only child. Laura’s father, Harold, was a warm man who was a regular at Saturday-afternoon gatherings at the Sick Pig, a barbecue place where the local honchos bet on Sunday’s football games. He made a good living putting up spec housing during the oil boom; Jenna kept the books and read to her daughter “from the time she could open her eyes.” Home life centered on the First Methodist Church and high-school football games. As a child she arranged her dolls into a little classroom and lectured them; at Southern Methodist University she got a degree in education and pledged Theta, the smart, good-looking girls’ sorority. “She would never have done any protesting, or all that other ’70s stuff,” says friend Jan O’Neill.
What made the quiet librarian ultimately fall for the backslapping businessman and would-be pol? “Just like I supposedly calm him down,” Laura says now, “he adds a lot of excitement to my life.” On Bush’s side was partly the knowledge that Laura was a girl his parents could love. “George’s father is the biggest single influence on his life,” says Roland Betts, chairman of Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers and a close friend of the governor’s from Yale. “Laura was the first woman whom he both loved and knew would satisfy their high standards.”
Perhaps the most important such moment came in 1986, when Bush gave up alcohol. She refuses to take credit, but says “I said I thought he ought to quit drinking. Of course, I told him that. But the person who stopped drinking was George.” There have been other rough spots. During her pregnancy Laura developed toxemia, a potentially life-threatening condition for the mother and the children. He was alarmed, but “she turned to me,” the governor recalls, “and said, ‘These babies will be fine. They will stay with me until they’re big enough to emerge.’ There was a determination and grit, an unbelievable will to protect the children. I remember to this day how confident I became because of her. She’s a determined woman.”
She’s also candid. One night, as they pulled into their driveway, he asked her how his speech had been. “It wasn’t very good,” she replied. He drove into the garage wall. They’ve both grown a lot since then. Laura’s good on the stump, a skill she attributes to having read “so many books over the tops of books” as a librarian and teacher. As First Lady she launched the Texas Book Festival. She’s proved to be a draw at fund-raisers in Texas and New York, and there are two scheduled in Washington this week.
Meanwhile, the Bushes have, however improbably, kept their private world fairly simple. When the governor returned from a campaign swing a few weeks ago, he went directly to their lake house–at 2 a.m. Laura was already there with a couple from Dallas and daughter Barbara, who was working on college applications. On Laura’s 52d birthday–the day the governor flunked a reporter’s quiz on foreign leaders–he returned from New Hampshire in time to celebrate with Laura’s mother and friends. The next day, their 22d anniversary, she spent most of her time with her mother; he spent most of his with foreign-policy adviser Condoleezza Rice. That weekend they were joined by Roland Betts and his wife, Lois; Laura went with her to the book festival, and the governor took him to view the ranch with daughter Jenna in tow. “Laura is able to live an interesting life that is apart from the political campaign, which I find totally appealing,” says George W. Bush. “Politics doesn’t totally consume her, and as a result, it doesn’t totally consume me.”
That may not last. Though the primaries are just ahead, Bush’s schedule is almost leisurely; he’s home for half the days left before Christmas. Does he have what it takes? His wife seems philosophical about it all. “If it works out, it works out,” she says. “If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. We’ll still have a life.” Laura Bush will do everything she can to make sure of that.
