Last night, from the heart of the Texas State House, Texas Gov. George W. Bush earnestly accepted the monumental task facing him.

Bush's career before this moment has been a study in contrasts. Throughout his life, the president-elect, who still proudly recounts his days growing up in Midland, Texas, has consistently mixed his Texan background with his elite Eastern pedigree.

In his first political race in 1978, running for Congress in Midland, he was roundly attacked for being an Eastern carpetbagger.

Since then he has tried to leave his top-flight academic grooming at Andover, Yale and Harvard merely on his resume, and tried his hand at Texan enterprises from oil to baseball.

But even as he toiled unsuccessfully in West Texas oilfields, he could not escape the political heritage of his family. In 1988, with his father in the midst of a presidential race, Bush returned to the political stage and was devastated by his father's defeat four years later.

Two years into the Clinton administration, Bush, never considered to have true political potential, ran for the Texas governorship as an underdog--and won. And with a Republican Party searching desperately for a candidate to successfully rally around in the 2000 presidential race, Bush again surprised his doubters.

Facing the formidable experience of Vice President Al Gore '69 and an election that easily could have prevailed against him, Bush clearly emerged last night as the unquestioned president-elect. But it was a triumph that, even a few years ago, his closest supporters could only have dreamed of.

A Midland Man Goes East

While he claims Texas as his home state, the Connecticut-born Bush spent many of his formative adolescent years attending top-flight schools in the Northeast.

The scion of a political line, his grandfather a former Senator and his father in Congress, Bush attended elite East Coast schools like Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. and Yale University, where he majored in history.

But academics were not his focus at Yale, as the younger Bush decided to focus more on intramural athletics and his role as president of Delta Kappa Epsilon, where he was a serious socialite who was well-remembered for his charisma and intangible charm.

Indeed, politics seemed to be the last thing on Bush's mind as he avoided the conflicts that were engulfing others in the 1960s, including student protests against the Vietnam War.

With little career direction after graduating from Yale in 1968, Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard, which he served in for five years.

After this brief military stint, Bush entered what he has referred to as the "nomadic years" of his life.

After moving to a singles complex in Houston, Bush continued living the collegiate high life while keeping sporadic employment and occasionally working on his father's congressional campaigns.

Bush eventually returned to the Ivy League in 1972, this time enrolling in Harvard Business School, where he earned his MBA.

The Career Man

Shortly after his graduation from Harvard, Bush decided to enter the family business, returning to Midland to form an independent oil and gas exploration company called Arbusto--the Spanish word for Bush.

Many say that his career advancement, much like his education, followed a distinct family path.

"George didn't know anything about the oil business really," said one of his business partners, geologist Paul Rea, in an interview with The Associated Press. "The principal reason was because his dad did it, and he wanted to make some money of his own."

The new career was not the only change in Bush's life. In 1977, he married Laura Welch, a former librarian and teacher who he had known in junior high school.

After settling down, Bush made the monumental decision to run for public office. In his first bid to enter the political arena, Bush faced Democratic state Sen. Kent R. Hance.

Bush lost his Congressional race in a nail-biter, suffering from his connections with Eastern institutions.

Hance described the race to The Crimson as a contest of two colorful--and political--personalities

"We were both good ol' boys. He had the winning personality, so I had to be your neighbor," Hance said.

As a "neighbor," Hance explained, his strategy was to paint Bush as an outsider. It proved to be a successful strategy--enough to overcome Bush's massive campaign warchest, acquired through his father's political ties, and give him a victory of 6 points.

With this first political defeat, Bush returned to his oil company. But the early 1980s marked a rough time for Bush's company, as declining oil prices drove down profits and forced him to merge his company with the Spectrum 7, a competitor.

Moving Out and Up

It took a milestone, his 40th birthday, to drive Bush to a decision to change his lifestyle, giving up alcohol and concentrating more on raising his twin daughters and enhancing his faith.

The political fortunes of his father had a great impact on this transformation. George W. Bush was pushed into the national spotlight with his father's 1988 presidential campaign.

In 1987, Bush began work on the campaign. Though he was given no official title, he nonetheless played a crucial role as a trusted adviser and speechwriter. The campaign work also gave Bush the opportunity to establish himself as a talented speaker as well as a chief link to Christian conservatives.

After his father's victory, Bush returned to Texas once again, where he embarked on the next major business venture of his life. He purchased a partial share of the Texas Rangers baseball team, allowing him to become more of a public figure in Texas as he attended all of the Rangers' home games.

And in 1994 Bush decided to try his hand at politics once again, challenging the Democratic incumbent Ann Richards for the Texas governorship.

His family advocated against the move, and his efforts seemed like a quixotic quest because of Richards's popularity. But Bush successfully ran as the underdog. On election night, his margin of victory totaled over 350,000 votes.

The Texas Politician

Despite his shaky beginnings, Bush has grown into the role of politician.

"You develop this real impression of an apolitical guy," said Bush biographer Bill Minutaglio in an interview with the Austin American Statesman.

But throughout his reign as governor of Texas, he has established a reputation for straight talk.

His mother, Barbara Bush, said in an interview with The Associated Press, "He is the son who pulls no punches and tells it like he thinks it is."

Bush has built an image as a pragmatic politician in Texas by using bipartisan coalitions and a political philosophy of "compassionate conservatism" to implement proposals for tax cuts and education reform.

He has relied on his charm and outgoing personality to establish friendly relations with people on both sides of the political aisle.

With this year's presidential election finally over and partisan acrimony brewing in Washington, this aspect of his personality may determine how effective he can be as a leader.

"He will find it a lot more partisan in Washington, [but] I anticipate that he will appoint several Democrats and work hard to work across party lines," Hance said.