Also interesting, in 1970, George H.W. Bush's political career was over. But when elected president, Nixon in a bipartisan gesture asked former Democrat Texas governor John Connally to be his Treasury Secretary.

 Quote:
TREASURY SECRETARY

In 1971, Republican President Nixon appointed the then Democrat Connally as Treasury Secretary. Before agreeing to take the appointment, however, Connally told Nixon that the president must find a position in the administration for George H. W. Bush, the Republican who had been defeated in November 1970 in a hard-fought U.S. Senate race against Democrat Lloyd M. Bentsen. Connally told Nixon that his taking the Treasury post would embarrass Bush, who had "labored in the vineyards" for Nixon's election as president, while Connally had supported Humphrey. Ben Barnes, then the lieutenant governor and originally a Connally ally, claims in his autobiography that Connally's insistence saved Bush's political career because the then former U.S. representative and twice-defeated Senate candidate relied on appointed offices to build a resume by which to seek the presidency in 1980 and again in 1988. Nixon hence named Bush as ambassador to the United Nations in order to secure Connally's services at Treasury. Barnes also said that he doubted George W. Bush could have become president in 2001 had Bush's father not first been given the string of federal appointments during the 1970s to strengthen the family's political viability.[17]


So without Connally's insistence, G.H.W. Bush's career would have been over, and he never would have been appointed U.N. Secretary, GOP Chairman, Ambassador to China, and Director of the CIA, to campaign on in 1980, and then Reagan's vice president for 8 years, all of which supremely qualified him to run in 1988.

And without Bush Sr being president in 1988-1992, George W. Bush never would have gotten the experience to run in 2000. All built on Connally pressing Nixon to find a place Bush.


Also the fact that Connally was in the convertible with JFK when he was shot (and Connally was injured as well by the same bullet that killed Kennedy), and Connally becomes a very interesting guy, who was at center stage in two pivotal moments of U.S. history.