Jeb Bush (R)

After working in banking for a few years, Bush joined his father's 1980 campaign for president; though Reagan won the nomination instead, George H. W. Bush was chosen as his running-mate. Wanting to build his own career independant of the family name, the younger Bush moved his family to Florida later that year.

Bush's first job in Florida was for real-estate executive Armando Codina, a man who would become one of Bush's closest friends and advisers. He quickly moved up the ladder in the business world, and got involved in politics, becoming chair of the Dade County GOP When Bob Martinez (R) was elected governor in 1987, in large part thanks to Dade County, he appointed Bush Florida's commerce secretary.

When his father made his bid for the White House, Jeb left his job in Tallahassee to stump for him. After George H.W. Bush won the presidency, Jeb expanded his business interests with a dozen new investments and deals, forging a formidable network among the rich and powerful in Miami.

In 1994, Bush failed in his first gubernatorial campaign, losing narrowly to the incumbent, moderate Democrat Lawton Chiles. But four years later he had learned from his mistakes, and defeated Democratic Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay to become Florida's 43rd governor.

Governor of Florida

During his two terms in office, Bush pushed through $19.3 billion in tax cuts and privatized thousands of government jobs to trim the state budget, drawing praise from Republican governors and advisers across the country. He also made groundbreaking changes to the Florida public school system, and garnered widespread approval for his handling of a dozen hurricanes and tropical storms to hit the state during his tenure.

On the other hand, he drew criticism for his intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman whose husband and parents disagreed on whether to remove her feeding tube. And in 2000, when George W. Bush's narrow electoral defeat of Al Gore hinged on a ballot recount in Florida, Jeb (governor at the time) was blamed by many Democrats for influencing the recount in Bush's favor.

Bush left office one of the most popular Florida governors in recent history. In one poll, 57 percent of Floridians said he did a "good" job as governor, while only 10 percent said he did a "bad" job - an impressive approval rating given the swing state's ethnic and political divisions.

Another President Bush?

Nearly as soon as he stepped down as governor, conservatives began hoping Jeb would run for president, if not in 2008, then surely in 2012 or 2016. But Bush planned to retire from politics for awhile, perhaps in part to please his publicity-averse wife, and make some money.

Speculation about Bush's ambitions for 2012 began in earnest in early 2010 when an appearance on the Today Show seemed to indicate he was angling for national appeal. His support of GOP candidates across the country, particularly those like Rand Paul, a populist candidate the Bush family would normally dismiss, reinforced the idea that Bush has bigger plans for his future.

Bush also supported Marco Rubio, the Republican nominee in the 2010 Florida Senate race over his successor, incumbent Gov. Charlie Crist, who became switched from Republican to independent after polls showed him losing to Rubio in a primary.

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