Frist '74 drops bid for GOP nomination in 2008

Retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist '74 (R-Tenn.), who had been widely expected to seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, said yesterday that he is abandoning plans for a White House run to return to his medical work and spend more time with his family.

"In the Bible, God tells us for everything there is a season, and for me, for now, this season of being an elected official has come to a close," Frist said in a statement issued by his office. "I do not intend to run for president in 2008."

The news comes after several recent polls showed Frist trailing other prospective Republican nominees, including former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), by significant margins.

Frist's prospects further deteriorated after this month's midterm elections, which saw Republicans yield six Senate seats to Democratic opponents, losing control of that body as well as the House of Representatives.

Frist, however, attributed his decision to personal factors rather than what some observers called an increasingly bleak political reality.

"At this point," he said in his statement, "a return to private life will allow me to return to my professional roots as a healer and to refocus my creative energies on innovative solutions to seemingly insurmountable challenges Americans face."

Nick Allard '74, a Washington-based lawyer and close friend of Frist since their Princeton days, said yesterday's announcement does not necessarily signal the end of his friend's political career.

"It's bittersweet but not surprising — other things in his life are more important than the presidency right now," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if some time in the future he ran for president or found some other outlet for service."

Allard, a self-identified "pretty active Democrat," added that he admired Frist's decision. "Like the card game Texas Hold 'Em, it takes a lot of guts to fold when you have a strong hand," he said. "It takes a lot for somebody who's been in Washington not to get caught up in the never-ending chase for a higher office."

But Wilson School professor Nolan McCarty said he didn't buy Frist's publicly expressed reasons for not running.

"That's what they all say," McCarty said of Frist's claim that he wants to spend more time with his family. Frist's youngest son, Bryan, is a freshman at the University and his eldest son Harrison graduated in the spring. "As people will say about candidates who decide not to run, 'They made the shrewd political calculation that they couldn't win.' "

Frist's struggles stemmed in part, McCarty said, from allegations that he engaged in insider trading when he sold shares in HCA, Inc., a hospital chain founded by the Frist family. Growing public antagonism toward the Bush administration, McCarthy said, was another likely factor in Frist's decision.

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"He, probably of all people running, was most like Bush in the sense of policy positions," McCarty said. "He seemed to be the one two or three years ago who was angling for the role of successor to Bush — the big government, compassionate conservative."

"The deterioration in Bush's standing," McCarty added, "hurt Frist more than any of the other candidates."

A former heart and lung transplant surgeon, Frist was elected to the Senate as a campaign underdog with no previous political experience as part of the 1994 Republican landslide. He became Senate Majority Leader in early 2003, after Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) stepped down after making comments that some said were racially insensitive.

In the past few years, Frist has garnered harsh criticism both in Washington and at his alma mater.

He came under fire last spring for challenging the diagnosis of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman whose husband petitioned the courts to remove the feeding tube that kept her alive.

Earlier this year, members of his own party also criticized him for shifting stances on immigration and gasoline rebates.

On campus last April, University students organized a "Frist filibuster" outside Frist Campus Center, protesting attempts by Senate Republicans to prevent Democrats from blocking conservative judicial nominees.

Frist's family funded construction of that same campus center five years ago. He was a Wilson School major, Cottage Club member and president of the Princeton Flying Club while at the University.

Looking ahead, McCarty and Wilson School professor Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman, said Frist's withdrawal will not significantly affect the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

"His deciding not to run was sort of like the next person you pass on the street deciding not to run," Edwards said. "His withdrawal doesn't change anything; it doesn't strengthen anybody. If he had been somebody who was strong in one particular segment of the Republican base, [his withdrawal] would have opened things up for somebody else strong in that segment."

But since Frist didn't really have a base of support within his own party in the first place, Edwards said, such an opening is unlikely to occur.

If Frist does opt for continued political involvement, though, some hope his decision not to seek the presidency will free him to disagree more publicly with the current administration.

"This is good news," a close friend of Frist's from Princeton said of yesterday's announcement, speaking on the condition that he not be identified. "It will allow Bill to have an epiphany, if he chooses, and return to his former moderate pro-choice, pro-stem cell research self and escape the caricature that [White House adviser] Karl Rove turned him into."

In the meantime, though, Allard said Frist's return to working as a physician will keep him busy. He added that his friend's penchant for medical service is a central part of his character, whether he's working in or out of Washington.

"When we have a vacation, we go to the beach," Allard said. "When he has one, he goes to catastrophically troubled parts of Africa and works as a physician, with sleeves pulled up and surgical mask on."