The Arkansas arriviste and his followers must be driven from the throne, that the true royal lineage be re-established. A lot of this is pure-dee horseshit, of course, from the oafish scions of new American money, and especially in the early chapters of First Son one often feels sorry for author Minutaglio, because his official subject keeps skittering off the page. There's just not much to say about the young Georgie, after you've pointed out his passion for and incompetence at baseball, his safely wild streak, how little his friends remember of him. This all tells the reader a great deal, but it's mostly between the lines. Smitten by loss, some people throw themselves into work, but in this world, jobs are a hobby or a distraction.
Games are real.
There is also little of George W.'s own beliefs, except as they advance the narrative. Minutaglio notes this platform, Bush's broadcast of it, and moves on, to campaign style and pace. He has grasped that particular ideas don't really mean much to Bush himself, except as strategy, and if the need arose he could just as easily exchange them for something else. Overwhelmingly, they ain't you and me. Yet despite the lackluster central figure, a handful of secondary characters draw attention.