The man did have a number of years of higher education under his belt.
When he was working on his Father's campaign, he hit upon the “Religious Right” as being the key to winning the election and, in particular, winning
Texas. So, “from nowhere,” he became governor. (Guile is a form of intelligence.)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/etc/script.html…
DOUG WEAD: Sometimes, when we would prepare these memos for his father, we would prepare a memorandum on a region or a state. And I remember George W. reviewing the memorandum on the state of Texas, and he just lit up. "Ah!" You know, "I could do this in Texas." You know, "I can make this work in Texas." I think there was no secret he was talking about running for governor.
…
DOUG WEAD: Now, he had become an evangelical Christian himself. So he's reading this strategy, and he's thinking, "Whoa."
GEORGE W. BUSH: (1994 campaign commercial) I am running for governor to change this state. We can right the wrongs in Texas if guided by one basic principle: Individuals should be responsible and accountable for their actions.
WAYNE SLATER: It was a marvelous transformation from the outsider, rich wastrel, who would drink, to the inside Texan--
ANNOUNCER: (campaign commercial) --a family man active in civic and church programs to help the disadvantaged--
WAYNE SLATER: --a person who understood the values, the religious ethic, the social ethic, the cultural ethic that was so missing in his first campaign.
…
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2000/bush/pinkerton.html …
What did George W. learn from watching his father's career?
I think, (he) learned a lot from his father's campaigns in terms of how to win, and then how to lose, both, '88 and '92, and then said "You have to be respectful of the Republican Party's base, what they believe."
And there are some issues that carry over better from the Republican party base to the national electorate. I believe that the country shares the basic economic freedom, pro-business, limited government ideology the Republicans have. The country as a whole has a more watered down, moderate version of that, but nonetheless, that's something that you can transfer from Texas to the country. You can't transfer abortion, school prayer from Texas to the country. I think he made it very clear that compassionate conservatism meant we're going to have economic freedom, pro-businesses, do some stuff on education to make that better, but we're not going to have a Christian country. We're not going to try and transplant the ideological views of Dallas or Houston to the country as a whole.
And that was what Republicans are looking for. Republicans are tired of losing after '92 and '96. They wanted something different than Ralph Reid and Jerry Falwell, and Bush gave it to them, at the same time while preserving good relations, in his own case, with Ralph Reid and Jerry Falwell. So that trick of not being seen as a candidate of the Christian right, but nonetheless being friendly with the Christian right, was the sort of synthesis that enabled him to get from the Republican primaries into competitiveness here in the general election.
… When he ran for governor, he was articulate, relative to when he ran for President. (He was the "Joe Sixpack" candidate. The candidate you'd want to have a beer with. He bought a “ranch.” He developed a drawl… He became an anti-intellectual…)
Read a bit about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Junius_Brutus">Lucius Junius Brutus and see if you don't view George Walker Bush in a slightly different (scarier) light.
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