Recognizing the oddness of the selection process, Bush spokeswoman Hughes broke down the timeline Tuesday for the press after Bush formally announced his selection of Cheney Tuesday afternoon in the Burnt Orange Room of the Frank Erwin Center downtown.

In March, at a post-dinner rap session in the library of the governor's mansion here, Bush asked Cheney if he had any interest in serving as his running mate. Though Cheney had always been a friend of the campaign, going so far as to help put together the Bush foreign policy and defense advisory group, he demurred, saying that he was enjoying his job in the private sector, as chairman and CEO of the Halliburton Co.

Fair enough, Bush said. Though, he said in his speech on Tuesday, he "kept the thought of him joining me in the back of my mind."

Several weeks later, in April, Bush asked Cheney to head the selection process; Cheney accepted. Plenty of individuals went through the rigorous vetting process, Cheney, Bush and the vetting team discussed the choices and reviewed their financial, professional and political records.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, Cheney went to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. On July 3, sitting in the den of the guest house -- as the new house is being built -- Bush and Cheney rapped for several hours, talking about potential running mates. Soon it was lunchtime. Over lunch-meat sandwiches that Hughes said were assembled by each individual, Laura Bush asked her husband how the process was going.

Bush motioned toward Cheney. "This would really be the best man, if he would do it," Bush said, according to Hughes. "I wish he would." Bush explained in his speech Tuesday that, having selected "a distinguished and experienced statesman" to head his selection task, he "saw firsthand Dick Cheney's outstanding judgment. As we considered the many different credentials, I benefited from his keen insight. I was impressed by the thoughtful and thorough way he approached his mission. And gradually, I realized that the person who was best qualified to be my vice presidential nominee was working by my side."

After lunch, Cheney told Bush that he would consider the possibility. He would need to talk with his family about it, he said. In his speech Tuesday, Cheney said that he had become enamored of Bush. Working alongside Bush was "an experience that changed my life this spring," he said. "I worked alongside Gov. Bush; I heard him talk about his unique vision for our party and for our nation. I saw his sincerity. I watched him make decisions -- always firm and always fair. And in the end, I learned how persuasive he can be."

On July 11 and 12, Cheney traveled to Washington to interview other candidates -- and to visit his doctors at George Washington University Medical Center to get a clean bill of health. Cheney, after all, has had three mild heart attacks and underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery in 1988.

Cheney has "a long history of elevated cholesterol," according to Dr. Gary Malakoff, an associate professor of medicine, and has been treated for skin cancer and gout. According to Malakoff, Cheney "takes a long list of medications." He is also allergic to pomegranates.

Still, the doctors said he was healthy enough to run. A July 24 note given out in the Bush-Cheney press packets from Dr. Jonathan S. Reiner, also an associate professor of medicine, states that Cheney "continues to lead an asymptomatic and extraordinarily vigorous lifestyle. He travels extensively for work, exercises 30 minutes per day several days per week on a treadmill, and engages in vigorous recreational activities such as hunting."

On July 15, Cheney met with Bush to tell him about the candidates he had been interviewing, and the fact that he was apparently healthy enough for the job. Allbaugh, Hughes and Bush's chief advisor, Karl Rove, met with the two men, as well as Laura Bush, to talk "about the ramifications of the leader of the search becoming a candidate in that search," according to Hughes. It was soon after that that Bush contacted his father to have family friend and cardiac surgeon Denton A. Cooley consult with Reiner and Malakoff to give his OK on Cheney's bum ticker, too. They did so.

According to Hughes, Cheney was insistent that, even though he really really really wanted the job, he would present Bush with other viable options. "I remember being impressed that he was so fair and so thoughtful," Hughes says, though one wonders how fair Keating, Ridge, Pataki and the others think Cheney was.

It happened fast from there. On July 18, Cheney and Bush met in Chicago with Danforth and his wife, Sally. (Hughes says she assumed Cheney told Danforth that he himself was a candidate, too, though she wasn't sure.) On July 19, Bush called Cheney and told him he wanted to seriously consider him, asking if Cheney would be willing to leave the Halliburton Co. That day and the next, Cheney discussed his leaving with members of the board of directors of the company. On the 21st, he flew to Wyoming -- unbeknownst to the Bush campaign, Hughes insisted -- to change his voter registration.

Over the weekend, Bush contemplated his options at his ranch, and by Monday afternoon he had made his decision.

And then, the official version of this story goes, on Tuesday at 6:27 a.m., Bush woke up, fed the cats, gave Spot some water, brought some coffee to Laura and called Cheney at his Dallas home to tell him he had the job. Lynne Cheney answered the phone, Hughes said. Cheney, after all, was working out on his treadmill. Hustling his tail off, no doubt.

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