Posted on 12/20/2002 9:30:34 AM PST by Delphinium
WASHINGTON – Everyone knows Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is the upper house's only physician. But who is this man who appears likely to become the next Senate majority leader?
Sen. Bill Frist
Opponents of abortion on demand are likely to be deeply disappointed. While Trent Lott, R-Miss., had promised to bring to the floor for a quick, early vote a bill restricting partial-birth abortion, Frist championed the nomination by President Clinton of former Surgeon General David Satcher, a fervent supporter of unrestricted abortion and someone who actually performed abortions.
Satcher continued to serve in the Bush administration until earlier this year.
While Satcher's nomination was widely presumed to have originated with Vice President Al Gore, like Satcher, a Tennessean, his confirmation was actually championed by Frist.
Frist once told National Public Radio that there are no absolute right, absolute wrong answers in medicine. During last year's stem-cell debate, Frist proposed using leftover embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics for scientific research. The Weekly Standard also noted that Frist believes there is a moral imperative to use one unsalvageable life to save another.
Frist's other pet causes while serving in the Senate have been fighting AIDS in Africa and fighting obesity among Americans. He believes the federal government needs to increase funding of physical education programs in school. He thinks spending $125 million on a Centers for Disease Control program encouraging children to engage in athletics is another top priority.
He sponsored a bill earlier this year that would have authorized a nationwide ad campaign to promote better nutrition and exercise and would have authorized money for bicycle paths, parks and recreation centers.
According to sources close to the White House, Frist has been favored by Bush political adviser Karl Rove to take the helm of the Senate Republicans ever since Lott got himself embroiled in controversy with his remarks at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party.
Now Frist reportedly is reportedly the front-runner in the big to succeed Lott, who is expected to resign today.
According to the Associated Press, GOP aides say Frist, now in his second term, is gauging support from his colleagues, having spent time sounding them out by telephone.
One aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Frist would consider running for the job if colleagues asked him to do so "for the sake of the Senate as an institution or the long-term agenda of the Republican Party.''
In a sign that Frist might be building momentum, a Republican aide close to No. 2 Senate Republican Don Nickles of Oklahoma said Nickles would likely support a race by Frist.
Nickles, a longtime rival of Lott, believes he would have less support from colleagues than Frist for majority leader, the aide said.
Meanwhile, Lott sustained a double-barreled setback this week as Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., broke ranks to call for a change in party leadership and Secretary of State Colin Powell forcefully criticized his controversial remarks on race.
Powell, the highest-ranking African American in the Bush administration, made his first comments on a controversy that flared this month when Lott spoke favorably of Sen. Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign of a half-century ago.
"If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either," Lott said at Thurmond's 100th birthday.
"I was disappointed in the senator's statement," Powell said. "I deplored the sentiments behind the statement."
"There was nothing about the 1948 election or the Dixiecrat agenda that should have been acceptable in any way to any American at that time or any American now."
First winning entry to the Senate in 1994, Frist was re-elected in 2000 by the largest margin ever received by a candidate for statewide election in Tennessee history. He's the first practicing physician elected to the chamber since 1928.
A native of Nashville, Frist founded and subsequently directed the Vanderbilt Transplant Center, which became an internationally renowned center of multi-organ transplantation. He's performed some 200 heart and lung transplants and has written more than 100 articles, chapters and abstracts on medical research, as well as three books.
I'm not so certain about the 'moral imperative' but otherwise I have no objection with all this.
Doesn't bother me.
It is not only "customary," it's practically MANDATORY. It's political suicide NOT to champion a nominee from one's own state.
Man, the din from the single-issue Freepers is deafening on this bogus issue.
Michael
I said the same thing about those who were railroading Lott.
Lott was the issue, and he had to go, no matter what, right?
There's been more resentment created in some sectors of the GOP by abandoning Lott than you realize. You should hear the calls on C-SPAN right now. Almost all of them on the Republican line think Lott was treated very unfairly.
That's not representative of anything, certainly, but some Republicans have been alienated, and they're going to give the anal probe to everybody.
Frist's a good guy, but, as a politician, he's as opportunistic as anybody else.
To those who are pro-life and ARE single issue voters (I'm not), their concerns have to be addressed.
Anybody remember the last time Joe Farah had anything positive to say about anything that didn't involve Pat Buchanan? I'll bet Joe had this article ready to go with ANY name he needed to plug into it.
That's because there is none. Frist has voted consistently pro-life. Dr. Frist is the heart-and-lung transplant surgeon and son of the founder of Columbia HCA, Dr. Thomas Frist. ColumbiaHCA is a large health organization that owns a lot of large, top-notch hospitals.
Michael
If you think that those callers to C-SPAM's Republican Line are actually Republicans, then I have some El Primo Arizona Seaside property you may be interested in. The GOP Line at C-SPAM is populated almost entirely by DNC Seminar Callers.
Michael
And this may well come back and bite the GOP when it counts the most.
No thanks to the president and his race-minded sidekick Rove.
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