'Fristy' is wealthy, personable and a friend of the president
Los Angeles Times
Published Dec. 21, 2002 FRIS21
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As he prepares to become the next Senate majority leader, Sen. Bill Frist is on the cusp of another milestone in his second career that some believe may include a run for the White House in 2008.
"Fristy" to his friend President Bush, the heart-and-lung transplant surgeon from Tennessee already had been mentioned as a possible secretary of the new Department of Homeland Security, a future party leader in the Senate, even Bush's running mate in 2004. Not bad for a man who didn't bother to vote until age 34.
Did not participate in the Reagan Revolution? Could this be strategy, not to alienate moderates?
Frist, 50, and two years into his second term, is a consensus builder who presents himself as a "compassionate conservative" and for years he has spent portions of his vacations performing free operations all over Africa.
Gets Arun vote here?
According to the congressional newspaper Roll Call, Frist, whose personal wealth is about $20 million, is in ninth place among Senate millionaires, just behind Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Safer to be behind Kennedy than in front of him, esp at supper time.
As a source of wealth, HCA could prove politically nettlesome down the road as Frist comes under increased scrutiny. After a protracted federal investigation, the company pleaded guilty in 2000 to charges of large-scale Medicare fraud and agreed this week to pay more than $880 million in fines and restitution. Frist, who never worked at HCA, was untouched by the investigation.
Has the magic Regan-W teflon working.
But his financial disclosure forms indicate that he, his wife and children hold millions of dollars in HCA stock. And during his time in the Senate, he has accepted more than $1.8 million in campaign contributions from health-care and related industries, according to data compiled by campaign finance expert Dwight L. Morris.
Don?t tell McCain.
. As a student, he adopted stray cats from Boston-area shelters -- and then dissected them. Frist later confessed that it had been "a heinous and dishonest thing to do
Well, he lost the PETA and Sicy vote.
Frist told an interviewer for the Hospitals & Health Network that he had not voted earlier in life because "I didn't realize how significant the impact of an individual could be."
Don?t give this speech in Florida.
His voting record is quite consistently conservative. He is generally opposed to abortion, though he has made exceptions for rape, incest and protecting the life of the woman.
Could lose votes in the South.
