With Clinton retiring and Vice-President Gore seeming vulnerable due to scandals and some voter fatigue after 12 years of Democratic control of the White House, a number of Republicans vied for the nomination. Among them were Senators Dan Quayle (Indiana), John McCain (Arizona), Orrin Hatch (Utah), and Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania), as well as Representative John Kasich of Ohio. The "star" candidate, however, was George W. Bush of Texas, the popular Governor of Texas and son of the last Republican to be elected President (George H. W. Bush in 1984). Bush had been presented as the consensus candidate of the caucus of Republican Governors in order to present an instant, well-funded front-runner and avoid the in-fighting that had dominated previous Republican primaries. Their plan worked very