That’s the kind of thing Jenna and Barbara would like everybody to think they’re doing. Both Jenna and Barbara announced earlier in the summer that they intended to work on humanitarian pursuits after graduation—Jenna as a fourth-grade assistant teacher at the Harlem Day Charter School, where 90 percent of the students live under the poverty level, and Barbara as an assistant on a pediatric AIDS program at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston—but they’ve put those plans on hold. The official word from the First Lady’s office is that they decided to participate in the campaign instead, but it’s just as possible they simply changed their minds. (In Jenna’s case, it’s not clear that her plans were ever firm; Harlem Day chairman Ben Lambert says that she did not complete an application.)

A more likely scenario is that the Bush twins will move here after the election and secure comfortable jobs in the industries in which they’ve already made inroads. Like Lauren and cousin Billy Bush, the hyper Access Hollywood anchor, Jenna and Barbara have been drawn to glittery pursuits (Ashley, Lauren’s 15-year-old sister, recently completed a summer acting program at Lee Strasberg). Jenna worked as an intern at Harrison & Shriftman, a fashion-and-beauty public-relations firm, where she worked the door at events like a Mercedes Maybach party and made many photocopies. The canny principals also reportedly invited her to movie premieres and events like Bridgehampton Polo as a VIP guest, even though other interns were banned (Jenna never took them up on the offer). “She talked to her mom on the phone all day long,” says one co-worker. Though Jenna now has an apartment in Manhattan, during that working summer, she lived in the NYU dorms with a handful of UT friends—she thought it would be fun, kind of like the dorm she lived in the first year at UT, the all-girls dorm that has two pools and maid service twice a week. But it was so not like that. At least you could have guys over at the NYU dorm, unlike UT. “Frat guys try to break in once or twice year and get arrested,” says a former resident. Jenna’s main responsibility at H&S was working on the Charles Worthington account. They wanted to get an ice-cream truck to drive around the Hamptons and hand out sample shampoos and conditioners, and Jenna was in charge of the permits. Jenna being Jenna, though, the whole thing fell through.

Is it going to be fun for the twins during the convention? You betcha. They vigorously disagreed with their dad’s decision to run for president, but now that they’re used to it, things are cool. They got to pose in Oscar de la Renta and Calvin Klein gowns for a recent Vogue spread, and went to the Olympics, too. Directly after President Bush’s acceptance speech at Madison Square Garden, they’ll be guests of honor at Emma Bloomberg and Emily Pataki’s “Next Generation of Leaders” party at Gotham Hall.

In any case, the convention might be like a reunion of all their Texas pals, like Betts or Powhatan “Powie” French. He’s the sandy-haired oil heir who introduced Basabe to Barbara (he and Basabe went to Pepperdine University together), and who lived in New York for a few years. When Barbara would come in to visit the city from New Haven, sometimes she’d stay in a suite at the Pierre alongside the sprawling, chintz-heavy two-bedroom owned by French’s family. Barbara went from benefits at Capitale to Soho House to Bungalow 8, with tequila shots— no salt or lime, Mister, she’d say—as a favorite libation. “We all thought it was so funny that when Barbara came to New York, the Bushes would entrust her to Powie,” says a friend. “He’s one of those guys parents love, and now he’s married and calm, but back then you never saw him in daylight.”

Barbara always loved fashion, so she welcomed the invitations that people who knew Powie from Lotus would shower her with, to front-row seats at shows like Wink or Zac Posen or Jeremy Scott. P. Diddy, however, is said to have rescinded her invitation to his show after the invasion of Iraq (Diddy’s office denies this). Barbara even interned at Über-hip clothiers Proenza Schouler last summer. She’s a pretty girl, but she’s far from a model, and knows it. “Barbara loves fashion, but she can laugh at what she looks like in it,” says a friend. “Someone will send her a dress to wear, and she’ll put it on and say, ‘Oh, this dress does not work! It’s pulling in all the wrong places!’ Then she’ll make fun of herself all night.”

One of those nights was when Barbara was photographed dancing with Basabe at Sette. They’d come from a Proenza Schouler party to the Fashion Week party for Jennifer Nicholson, Jack’s daughter. Basabe, who has become a kind of gentleman walker for the young-socialite set, is an amazing dancer, which makes him a useful extra man. Before he took Barbara out on the dance floor, she was sharing a cigarette with a friend under the table as Lady Bunny D.J.’d (it was not the most exclusive party). Barbara was falling out of her slip dress, which she wore over jeans and high heels, but no one wanted to tell her. She started singing songs from Aladdin.

“I liked her so much,” says a recent Princeton grad who was seated next to her. “I wanted to be friends with her.”

Barbara doesn’t mind Daddy being president as much as Jenna does. Jenna really hates it. The second time that she was busted for underage drinking, she started crying and complained to the cop that it wasn’t fair she didn’t get to do what other kids her age do. Then she complained again when photographers were taking her picture in the courtroom. Once she even insisted that the Secret Service guys hold garment bags in front of her when she was getting off a plane, so the media couldn’t take pictures of her.