(FORTUNE Magazine) – George W. Bush is the Republican Party's bright light, the governor of a big state, and the heir to a political tradition. He looks great on magazine covers, but the presidency isn't won on paper, which is why John Glenn never lived in the White House. Bush thrills the hearts of politicos, but can he win the hearts of voters outside Texas?

There's a gaggle of candidates with more stirring personal stories (Senator John McCain of Arizona), more experience (former Vice President Dan Quayle), more money (publisher Steve Forbes), more passion (conservative activist Gary Bauer), more media savvy (commentator Pat Buchanan), more organization (perpetual candidate Lamar Alexander), more energy (Ohio Representative John Kasich), more New Hampshire roots (Senator Bob Smith), and more X chromosomes (former Red Cross president Elizabeth Dole).

Dole has already emerged as the principal alternative to Bush, a sentence you might actually have read 20 years ago. And though this is a different Bush and a different Dole, some of the calculus is the same: Dole is a creature of establishment Washington, more appealing in the controlled atmosphere of the capital than in the unpredictable upheaval of the campaign trail. And some of the calculus is different. This Dole is the only female in the field, which shouldn't be underestimated given the mess men have made of politics; when she attended the annual Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce dinner last month, she became the first speaker ever to sell out the event.

If Dole turns out to be too brittle, too controlling, too scripted for fin-de-siecle politics, there's always Forbes, whose slogan might be "Money is no object." He has quietly been making inroads among religious conservatives, many of whom shunned him in 1996 because they resented his focus on economics and were suspicious of his late father's lifestyle.

Or there's McCain, who was shot down over North Vietnam, lived in solitary confinement in the Hanoi Hilton, and refused an offer for early release because his jail mates were still imprisoned. He's the against-the-grain candidate, bucking the party on tobacco and campaign-finance reform. He also has a colorful past; social conservatives, already skeptical of his views, won't be comforted by accounts of how his first marriage ended (badly).

Religious conservatives have no qualms about Buchanan--who knows there are enough peasants with pitchforks for a strong showing in New Hampshire (but maybe not elsewhere)--or Quayle. His goal in 2000 is more redemption than the nomination, though he can't win the first without a strong effort in the second. Al Gore's dream opponent will have the money and the manpower to persevere past Iowa and New Hampshire, and he may play a kingmaker role. Don't look for Quayle as a GOP running mate. Been there, done that.

Alexander has been everywhere in an obsessive campaign for the presidency that began around 1992. There isn't a Republican leader in all Christendom who hasn't had coffee with Alexander, and with strong support in Iowa and New Hampshire and a remarkable fundraising operation in Nashville, he can't be counted out. Just down. Bauer, Kasich, and Smith (running at 2% in his home state) can be counted out.

So what happens if Bush stumbles? Most likely, he'll just scuff his boots a little.

DAVID SHRIBMAN is Washington bureau chief of the Boston Globe and a Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter.