Speculation about a replacement for Evans at Commerce centered on Cincinnati real estate magnate Mercer Reynolds. Reynolds is another old Bush friend, who invested in the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball team when Bush was the team's managing partner. He later served as Bush's ambassador to Switzerland, before becoming finance chairman of the President's reelection campaign.
Reynolds is reputed to be a humble, hard-working, hands-on manager, who labored especially hard to help Bush win Ohio. "The weekend before the election, when everyone was nervous, Mercer Reynolds showed up in my office to do volunteer phone calls," Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett told the Associated Press. "He really surprised me. I said, 'Mercer, what are you doing here?' He said, 'I came to help out.'"
