e Republican Party. Blount was crushed in the election but that was not the significant part of the experience for George W.; he gained much insight into anti-Washington bias, the conservative Christian world, big government, and big taxes.In the fall of the next year, George W. requested an honorable discharge from the Texas Air National Guard and enrolled in Harvard business school. He was not sure exactly what he wanted to accomplish in his time there; his family hoped it would drive discipline and sense into the 27-year old. They thought he was still much too young to consider running for office, especially considering he had yet to hold a job for longer than a year. While there he avoided political involvement on campus, even as his father was becoming a more prominent figure in the White House. The summer following his graduation in 1975 George W. left the Northeast to return to his roots: the Midland-Odessa region. He promptly began looking up favors and old friends and soon formed his own company, “Bush Oil,” developing oil leads and passing them on at a price. In 1977, with Democratic Representative George Mahon from the 19th Congressional District abdicating, Bush saw the political opportunity he had been waiting for. With the entire Bush-Walker clan backing him financially, George W, announced his candidacy in July, and was seen by some as the best chance for the GOP in that district in decades. During this campaign period, he met his wife Laura Welch, and they were married in less than three months. Bush won the Republican nomination, fending off accusations of being a carpetbagger from the Northeast using him name for political gain, of having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and never having worked a day in his life. These same accusations of being an outsider were his downfall a few months later in 1978, as he lost the election to Kent Hance. Bush took the loss as a learning experience, ...
