And here's us on the beach with Dad...Bush's defining image

Few of us get the chance to run for president of the United States; fewer still can launch their campaign with a few home videos of Mum, Dad, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. But for George W Bush, it's all in the family.

Few of us get the chance to run for president of the United States; fewer still can launch their campaign with a few home videos of Mum, Dad, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. But for George W Bush, it's all in the family.

The Republican candidate for president has gathered a few of his close relations in Philadelphia for the party's convention - no more than a few hundred, it sometimes seems, from venerable old George Herbert Walker (the former president) down to theyoung George Prescott (the Latino model Bush).

George W (for Walker) has been careful not to seem too much a daddy's boy, but that didn't stop the convention from running a lavish video tribute to the old man on Tuesday, after similar hagiographies of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

There was courtly old Dad, in a golf sweater in his Kennebunkport home, reminiscing about the good times. There were shots of Saddam Hussein (boo!), and American troops and bombers (hooray!), as America won the Gulf War all over again. There were also pictures of all the Bushes, gathered for private family album shots, or walking on the rocky Maine shore with just a couple of press photographers and cameramen to disturb their cheery family solitude. Only the soundtrack told you this wasn't, despite appearances, a Ralph Lauren commercial.

We shared these precious moments with the Bushes, just us and few million television viewers. This was about "the spirit of goodness, strength and honour", said Mr Bush senior. Oh, and winning an election.