“As head of a non-partisan, national senior citizens’ organization, I reacted with cautious optimism when I heard President Clinton propose prescription drug coverage for all seniors,” says Jim Martin, President of the 60 Plus Association. “That caution was tempered and shaped by nearly four decades in this political town.”

Long before he was twice elected governor of his state and boomed for the Republican presidential nomination, well before he was his father’s political trouble-shooter in residence, and even before he made his maiden political voyage as a losing candidate before Congress from Texas in 1978, George W. Bush cut his political eye-teeth as a travel aide for a winning U.S. Senate campaign in Florida.