"In 1998, national polls of Republican voters began showing high numbers for George W. Bush. A pollster later confided to me that it's very possible that a lot of those people may not have known which Bush they were being asked about. In any event, the Bush juggernaut had started and Esquire sent me to Texas to travel with the reelection campaign. The Bush I saw was an affable, easygoing, rather ordinary fellow; a most unlikely man-of-destiny. But Karl Rove, whom I also met, had had the thing pretty much worked out from the start."
