Brainy and intense, confident to the point of arrogance, Frist stands at what has become one of the busiest intersections in American life: the place where medical science and politics meet. Reared in the Tennessee Bible belt, educated at Princeton and at Harvard Medical School, Frist speaks with ease to creationists and geneticists. Mankind is acquiring the ability to dictate its genetic destiny. A key question for the year–for the century–is: who will control the means of reproduction of the race, God or science? Frist will play a key role in that debate.
Frist, 49, is a scientist by training–and a daredevil by nature. Before winning a Senate seat in 1994 on his first try for office, he had spent close to 20 years as a heart-transplant surgeon, pioneering techniques along the way. He’s proud of the years he spent “cracking open” chests to replace diseased hearts with usable ones. His most prized memento: a photo showing him at a picnic, surrounded by more than 100 of his transplant patients. “They mean everything to me,” he says.
Ambitious, eager to be noticed, Frist is an ally of the White House–sort of. The Frists have been “upstairs” to dinner with the Bush family. But administration officials were upset when Frist floated his own proposal on stem-cell research, well before George W. Bush put forth his own. Frist’s would have given more latitude to research scientists. Frist can be ornery at times, possessed of his own hard-to-pigeonhole views. He isn’t a team player at heart–and White House strategists know it.
Perhaps they’re jealous: Frist wins raves from one end of the political spectrum to the other. “He’s a real keeper,” says Ralph Reed, a GOP consultant close to Christian conservatives. Frist’s clear explanations of the intricacies of anthrax won praise. “He played a very helpful role,” says Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, a health-care official under Bill Clinton.
This year Frist’s main political task is to help the Republican Party regain control of the Senate. Scion of a family that made a fortune in health care, Frist chairs the GOP’s Senate campaign committee. In that capacity, he’s busy meeting power brokers and contributors from coast to coast. Contacts of that kind can be useful–particularly if he decides to run for president someday. That would be the ultimate delicate operation, if Frist has the heart to give it a try.
