Bush's priority in Aug 2001 was for counting flowers on the wall.
salon.com
He was also trying to make Texans forget that he is really from Connecticut.
Ryan Lizza, White House Watch columnist for the New Republic spelled it out for us in summer 2001:
"By showcasing the Crawford ranch, the Bush spinmeisters hope to show that Bush had a life, an identity, and a home before he entered the White House. But the third point, at least, is certainly untrue. The Crawford ranch does not precede Bush's life on the national stage; it is a product of it. When Bush was just governor of Texas, he didn't have the ranch -- it was bought two years ago, with his presidential campaign at full steam. Before then, he lived in the governor's mansion and spent vacations at a home he owned at a members-only lakeside retreat in East Texas called the Rainbo Club, which caters to the Dallas elite. His other holiday destinations were the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, which did so much to identify his father as an aloof preppy, and the Gasparilla Inn, a luxurious Florida hideaway owned by an heir to the DuPonts where the Bush family went after the Florida recount. As one Texas newspaper noted back when Bush purchased his ranch, ’Mr. Bush has no roots in the area.’ But after seven trips there as president, Bush has most of the national press convinced that he was practically born and bred in Crawford. It's a great feat."
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