Frist in War, Frist in Peace

Oh dear Lord, let it be true - this incredible dream, the marching legions of Republicans for Bill Frist. Lordie, the Hardball honeys were all a twitter this evening at the (wonderful? stupendous? I simply can't choose) news that Senator Bill Frist has swept the presidential straw poll of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Tennessee. Sure, Johnny McCain basically took his baseball and went home, snidely suggesting the gathered conservatives vote the current President. But please make that a catastrophic error on his part. This country dearly needs Bill Frist - we need him as the Republican nominee for President. Oh do we need him, the man who stood near a pile of tsunami debris in Sri Lanka and told his photographer: "Get some devastation in the back." Oh my, let him run strong Lord, let him sweep the southern primaries, and let him get up on the that red, white, and blue stage and make his acceptance speech. Let him wave his hands over eight years of Republican reign, over Iraq, over New Orleans, over a party in power that advertises its Congressional votes in the pennysaver. Then let him repeat that award-winning line. "Get some devastation in the back." It's the perfect line to describe the achievements of his party, his cronies, his President, and himself. Then we can change the locks on the executive mansion, roll out the bastards, and attempt once again to hold our heads high as Americans among the nations of the world.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman agrees with this somewhat tongue-in-cheek analysis (would that Frist actually had a real chance for the nomination), and has his usual great round-up of reaction.

Comments

[blue girl]

Oh Tom, I know we should all want this. He's so -- disgusting (can't think of a better word) -- that I would have to believe the masses would see through him. But what if they didn't? Egads!

Plus, I'm not sure I could take watching him do his thing every day. I have a tendency to yell at the TV when most GOPers are on the tube -- I tend to run screaming from the room when it's Frist.

Did you see him being interviewed at that conference? He is just...ick.

[Tom W.]

B-girl - the thing is, if we don't get a smarmy Allen or Frist, we will get McCain and though I sometimes admire his style and selective candor, I think he's far more dangerous - mainly because he'd win. These guys have no chance.

[Brouhaha]

Oh, Tom, don't get too excited just yet... It was in Tennessee, his home state, and 82 of the delegates were Tennesseeans (is that a word?).

But it's also true that McCain's sycophantic courting of the right is working as poorly as Hilary's sycophantic courting of the center. Nobody's buying it because nobody's believing it.

And what voters are desperately looking for this time around (and, frankly, the last two times around - Hello Gore, Hello Kerry!) is authenticity. They know McCain is faking it when he talks up Bush and they know that Hilary is faking it when she talks up... anything but the left wing...

Frist will not end up nominated (George Allen's looking like a finisher, frankly).

But the best thing that could happen for the Dems in 2008 will be for them to recapture at least one house of Congress in 2006. And then to finally and unmercilessly pour the damning light of day on the putrification that is the Bush White House.

I love the smell of Congressional oversight in the morning! It smells like... victory!!!

[Slappy]

Vice President Rumsfeld!!!

[blue girl]

I was going to talk about George Allen in my earlier comment. He's the one the insiders are talking up. And he probably has just enough football analogies to pull it off. To come off as a regular guy -- one you'd want to have a beer with. Ick.

It's 4th and long -- can he do it??!!!

I don't think Frist has a shot at all. But Allen might. I mean if Bush did it, why not Allen?

I'm scared.

:)

[Tom W.]

I'd be happy with Allen - and the 42% of the vote he'd get, max ....

[blue girl]

Ok Tom W -- Every time my heart begins to sink because he seems to be successfully *marching down the field* -- I'm going to say out loud -- "But, he's only gonna get 42% of the vote -- max! Max!"

[Fitz]

Wow – Only 968 days to go until the next Presidential election and already salivating like a pit bull gnawing a T-Bone steak.

Sorry - no chance on Frist as nominee – as Brou pointed out the straw poll win was due to home field advantage. Equally, no chance on Allen. While he may excite the “true believers”, he wouldn’t draw the money.

At this moment, it’s McCain’s (and HRC's) race to lose.

[Tom W.]

Fitz, I agree with you at this stage 100% - but a guy can hope, can't he?

[Tom K]

Frist is probably too smart for the job, in the same way JC was. (That's Jimmy Carter). Very able fellows at highly technical jobs can overestimate their ability to control govt. DC ain't an OR, nor the com of a nuclear sub. It takes somebody who understands people better than most surgeons do. Also, Frist has always struck me as deeply strange, superficially at least, in a way similar to Nixon.

Not that I have anything against Nixon, apart from his liberalism, but I can't see Frist as the Repub. nominee, largely because of the impression he gives of being removed from the people he's speaking to. It may just be a form of honesty, but it's not a winning quality for a politician.

[blue girl]

"...Frist has always struck me as deeply strange.."

Me too!

[Brendog]

Getting sucked in by this kind of early election noise is utterly counterproductive. It allows the troika running the democratic party to relax, rather than construct a coherent, rational, compassionate and winnable strategy that involves merely being anti-Bush and throwing stones.
Rove is pleased knowing that unless there is some kind of break from democratic politics-as-usual, the dems will lose the White House in '08 when they self-destructive and repeat the Hackett debacle - by killing a winnable candidacy to fund a too-liberal party loyalist - who will probably lose.
I could write a coherent, winnable Democratic platform in about 2 hours, while it seems the party itself can not, because it is so out of touch with the national pulse.
The party should be figuring out how to beat McCain, certainly the best challenge to whomever the dems nominate. Pretty much any other Republican challenger will be easy to beat, so
stop wasting time on Frist-fantasies and start working on presenting a considered, rational, compassionate, progressive alternative to the disaster we're living today.
Otherwise start a real 3rd party. Where's Perot's money when America really needs it?

[cali]

George Allen *is* a danger. The GOP has been grooming him as the new 'Reagan.' Folksy. Everything can be explained with football analogies. All they have to do is get close enough to steal the election anyway...And, if Cheney steps down due to health concerns, I think the plan is to replace him with nitwit Allen.

Man, I woke up on the cynical side of bed this morning, I guess. Discussion of Frist and Allen is just too much on a Monday morning.

BTW - Frist was officially voted Most Annoying Senator:

nite swimming

[Tom K]

Allen faces a challenge from defecting Republican James Webb (Reagan's Navy Secretary, and author of a very good Vietnam novel, Fields of Fire).

Webb is the face of what a credible Dem. challenge to the Republican Party might look like. But he's too sensible and too small-C conservative for the national party. Still, in Virginia, he could be a serious threat.